INDUSTRY INTERVIEWS Archives - Page 2 of 8

September 30, 2023

Linda Pilkington Interview: “Ormonde Jayne Is Privately Owned By Me, So It’s Agile”

IMAGE: Ormonde Jayne

What started out as a request for product info* (for some reason, I decided to send to send my email to the PR contact on the Ormonde Jayne website) turned into a fully-fledged Zoom interview the next day with Linda Pilkington.

Good fortune! I’d put the founder of the London-based niche brand on my interview wish-list a couple of years ago, thinking it would probably take more time to materialise. So I’m not gushing (okay, just a little bit) when I tell Linda Pilkington it’s such a “thrill” to speak to her. Good timing too, I must add, with the October 2023 launch of Ormonde Jayne Arabesque EDP (a collaboration with Expressions Parfumées).

IMAGE: Ormonde Jayne.

My love for all things Ormonde Jayne can be traced back to one perfume specifically – Ormonde Jayne Ta’if EDP (2004) – and several others I’ve tried after that beauty.

Although Linda Pilkington says she’s more “thin skinned” than people realise, I get a strong sense of her grit, determination, humour, graciousness and entrepreneurial spirit. These qualities have taken her from an ice cream parlour founder and Chanel candle-maker to the owner of one of Britain’s leading niche fragrance brands.

*I assumed, erroneously as it turned out, that Ormonde Jayne Ta’if Elixir (2019) was created by Geza Schoen, who created the original. I discover during the interview that Linda Pilkington is a bit of a perfumer herself, “largely self-taught, at the very beginning of Ormonde Jayne, going through volumes of Poucher’s Perfumes, Cosmetics and Soaps, working with Geza Schoen and researching in Grasse part of the experience”.

What fragrance are you wearing today?

I’m wearing Ormonde Woman EDP. When I wake up, I think through the day ahead. What have I got? What do I need to wear? Am I meeting people?

If I’m going to be with lots of different people, I like to wear Ormonde Woman because it makes me feel like I’ve got a protective shield around me. I can function because it’s the black hemlock absolute, this kind of mysterious poisonous wood [I laugh].

No offence, by the way, it just makes me feel more special than, let’s say, if I was going out for a romantic dinner with my husband, and I may wear something a bit more alluring and floral.

IMAGE: Ormonde Jayne.

I could see why you would choose Ormonde Woman to give you that feeling. And that’s also the power of a beautifully created fragrance.

That’s right. Because sometimes a perfume can make you feel a certain way. I’ve done a bit of research in this area where scientists have proven certain ingredients have an effect on the brain, therefore would technically affect how you feel about something. It’s a concept I’m quite interested in looking into because it’s a lovely new dimension. How does this perfume make you feel?

You started your company in 2000 and here you are 20 years+ later. What’s kept you going through all this time?

The company, because it’s privately owned by me, is quite agile, therefore you haven’t got to explain to a committee or to investors, this has happened, that’s happened.

We’ve got the 2008 financial crash, a terrible Christmas and the whole of Bond Street was absolutely dead. And, of course, you just invested in a lot of components, oils, boxes and now you’ve got to pay the bill. We’ve had Covid, Brexit. One year I took a 300% rent increase, because the shop opposite my boutique had accepted a 300% increase in their rent.

So you have all these moments that you’ve got to deal with and I’m actually quite thin skinned. People always think I’m quite tough, tough as old boots, but these are things that keep me pondering all night long. What’s the best move? And then I run it by several people who I trust, like my husband and other people in the trade, and then I go with my own gut instinct which would be the right thing for Ormonde Jayne, taking into account what everybody’s told me.

“I felt the need to strengthen the company, so I’m not suddenly finding myself with 350 points of sales closed and rents to pay.” – Linda Pilkington

We’ve had a few hair-raising moments, but now we’re in a good strong position because after Covid, I felt the need to strengthen the company, so I’m not suddenly finding myself with 350 points of sales closed and rents to pay. I thought if this ever happens again, I need to have that resilience that I can shoulder it, so I built up a war chest of finance that’s there for unforeseen circumstances. And that makes me feel restful and peaceful within.

IMAGE: Ormonde Jayne

You can’t prepare for all eventualities, but at least have something to fall back on. Linda, I was reading on the website that Madame Rochas had a big influence on you in terms of your love of fragrance. Do you still love it? [Gets up and brings a Madame Rochas box to the screen]. Or can you find a bottle there? Ah, there it is.

Just my little reminder. It’s not the love for the perfume by a long shot. It’s just literally that moment where I’m a little girl, I like fragrance, but I’m on The Body Shop White Musk at this point in my life. My mum gave me that Rochas bottle mainly because she’d been given it by a man and she didn’t think it was proper to accept a perfume from a man, given that she was a married woman.

It was a beautiful big bottle – heavy, crystal glass, lovely cognac colour – and it looked so optically smart in my bedroom on my dressing table. I always wanted to have beautiful things in my bedroom, which I used to pay for myself.

When I visited the Biba department store in London – all black, gold, purple, peacock feathers, stalks on the roof in the roof gardens – I was so blown away, I wanted my bedroom to look like a Biba boutique.

My Madame Rochas perfume really fitted the bill and I thought it would be great to have more perfume bottles around my bedroom. Then my mum’s friends gave me all theirs and slowly but surely, I had this lovely collection of perfume bottles, which, at that point for me, was all about aesthetics.

And then, of course, somebody says, “Well, which one’s your favourite?”, so then you start smelling them all and I got into this whole thing of going to department stores and getting samples. And in those days the sample was made in the same style as the bottle. I was an expert on how to con the sales assistants out of these samples, poor women. They thought this girl knows what she’s talking about, so we will give her some samples. I used to collect all these tiny bottles, which I’ve still got today, and it kind of went on from there. This passion happenstance and that was the result of it.

BIBA LIFE: Twiggy at Biba, Kensington High Street, 1960s, photographer unknown. Various labels and price tags from Biba, early 1970s, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

I can’t think of a better way to start with such a special fragrance. Let’s talk about working with Geza Schoen, the perfumer who’s created a lot of your releases. Why has that been such a successful collaboration so far?

We both go back a long time, 23 years – it was a match made in heaven and good timing.

Geza was working for a big German company, Haarmann & Reimer, and wanted to do his own thing. He popped into the shop one day, introduced himself and told me what he needed. As it turned out, he lived five minutes away from my studio and when he saw it, he said, “Can I actually make my perfume here?” So I said, “Yeah, of course. Why not? You’re welcome.” We kind of became friends because of that. He was there for about two years, but not every day.

Because he had the training and I knew the technical-legal side – the dos and don’ts, where you get bottles from, where you get that made – it was good for both of us.

“I had an idea of what I wanted to do, which was to use ingredients nobody else was using and to give people an option if they came into the boutique.” – Linda Pilkington

I had an idea of what I wanted to do, which was to use ingredients nobody else was using and to give people an option if they came into the boutique. If they said I like cedarwood, I would say I’ve got hemlock. And if they wanted jasmine, I’ve got sampaguita. I had been on a lot of trips looking for unusual ingredients, sometimes successful, sometimes not.

Geza saved me a lot of time and effort when he told me these are speciality oils – far more expensive because they’re in small quantities and the big companies can’t use them because they don’t make enough of it. And you can contact companies and ask them for their list of speciality oils.

So that’s what I did, and then suddenly they came through on the fax machine, all these speciality oils, and I was really excited. The first thing that came out said hemlock and I said, “I’m having that straight away.”

We’re very different in personalities, which, in a way, is a good thing because we’re not copying each other. Geza is very much his own person and not wanting to be dealing with complications like a shop. He thought I was nuts spending so much money on perfumes and on ingredients that might not be available one year.

When Geza went back to Berlin, he still stayed in touch – in fact, we were exchanging yesterday and the day before. Now, I’ve maintained my vision and, of course, I still want to use certain ingredients and so I had to find some of my own suppliers farther afield. So he doesn’t mind if I do my own thing when we make perfumes for, let’s say, Fenwick, Harrods, Selfridges, the department stores, they only want maybe 200 bottles, 300 bottles. So we do it ourselves, in-house, and that works very well.

There’s lots of inspiration happening and you take it quite freely from London, your travels. Do you ever struggle with that?

No [she says emphatically]. My brain doesn’t stop churning. I take inspiration from everything, Richard. I used to have a camera, but now I just use my phone. Before all the security with airports, I always had a little pair of scissors so I could snip things.

I’ve got pages and pages of names of perfumes that don’t even exist yet. They’re just beautiful names that we like (my husband’s very good at this too) that we know we could find ingredients to make a perfume.

And so I’m constantly collating and bringing together all different walks of life. I’ve got literally books and books and books and pages and pages and photographs and photographs and file files, files, files, files of everything. I’ve got enough to last about 100 years [laughs].

“I’ve got enough inspiration to last about 100 years.” – Linda Pilkington

LINDA PILKINGTON ON…

ORMONDE JAYNE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH COLLECTION

We’ve got Qi, the breath of life of the Chinese, Tsarina for the opulence of Russian ladies, Nawab of Oudh to celebrate the intelligence of the Nawabs of India, and then we had the Montabacos of South America, the tango, the leather, the cowboys, the cigars and everything.

The Four Corners of the Earth is actually about London, embracing the rich diversity and all the rich cultures. The whole world lives in London. We learn from them and they learn from us.

That was with Geza Schoen.

ORMONDE JAYNE LA ROUTE DE LA SOIE COLLECTION

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan was a book that I read just before lockdown. A great education for me about all the merchants coming out of China through Constantinople, Babylonia, to Europe, to Florence, to the markets and bringing gun powder, mathematics, silk and their silkworms.

IMAGE: The Folio Society.

Off the back of that I thought I would love to learn more about the Silk Road flowers, trees, shrubs. It became a bit of a road map on my kitchen table, all these different areas – the Levant, Babylonia, Tanger – and ingredients.

I did that project with two guys and two ladies from Expressions Parfumées in Grasse, because it was complicated and it was more than one perfume. We work with a combination of people, but always using a house palette.

“We work with a combination of people, but always using a house palette.” – Linda Pilkington

Ormonde Jayne La Route de la Soie Collection

IMAGE: Ormonde Jayne.

ORMONDE JAYNE ELIXIR COLLECTION

We always want something for everybody and people kept saying we want something stronger.

For the Elixir Collection, we picked Osmanthus because we noticed that if we pulled the osmanthus for 42%, you could smell nuances in it that the 30% EDP didn’t have. As well as obviously the longevity, it just changed a little bit. So you have the option to show somebody this is at 30%, this is it at 42%. They could do the Pepsi Challenge and decide which one is for them. We did the same with the Ambre Royal EDP and Royal Elixir.

Ormonde Jayne Ta’if we mixed with pure Cambodian oud for the elixir. We have an oud trader and we buy Cambodian oud from this particular gentleman. And we have that checked with the chemist to make sure it’s pure, the real thing, before we pay the bill. It’s quite strong and we do that in our studio.

ORMONDE JAYNE ISFARKAND EDP AND ELIXIR

One of our best-selling perfumes, a short formula, and originally made for my husband when he was 40 years old. He got so many compliments on it, I had to bring it into the range.

When it came to the Isfarkand Elixir, we couldn’t use the pink pepper in the quantity I wanted to use it in due to IFRA (International Fragrance Association) rules, so Geza and I went back to the original (what we called the “Velvet Underground” formula) and put that at 42% without the pink pepper top note.

Some stores are wanting exclusivity on it, so maybe we’re going to make changes: these shops have it, nobody else has it, because they sell the most and that’s what clients want.

Like I said, we can move quickly, we don’t have to have lots of board meetings or anything like that. We can just have a five-minute conversation and decide let’s do it.

ORMONDE JAYNE TA’IF EDP

Back in the day, you couldn’t just buy a ticket and get a visa. You had to have an invitation from a company or a family in Saudi Arabia approved by their ministry first. And then, of course, you had to think about how you’re going to conduct yourself as a woman – separate accommodation, clothing, a chaperone.

When I got to Arabia and the aeroplane door opened, there was this real different scent in the air. There are lots of date palm trees there, so I was given a lovely date drink when I got to my hotel and a beautifully decorated box of dried dates next to the bed in my room. At my meeting, lots of beautiful oranges and fruits were all sliced up.

In the gardens of the Al-Raddaf Park was a celebration of the Taif rose [the damask rose varietal, grown in the Taif region of the country, is celebrated annually during the Taif Rose Festival]. The people pick the petals themselves, their baskets get weighed and the king gives money that day to his subjects. The little petals get poured into a distillation and on the other side of the park, you see the oil coming down into cauldrons.

“It meant something very special to me. Ormonde Jayne Ta’if was everything that I felt from that beautiful trip.” – Linda Pilkington

It meant something very special to me. So Ormonde Jayne Ta’if was taif oil with date oil with orange blossom. Everything that I felt from that beautiful trip.

Now you can just fly to Saudi Arabia, by the way, it’s changed completely. It was wonderful then as well, but everything was a little more exciting and mysterious.

Ormonde Jayne fragrance are available in South Africa from Galeries de Parfums.

August 26, 2023

Jean Jacques Interview: “I Often Start From The Caron Legacy To Make New Creations”

IMAGE: Caron.

Good things come to those who wait, it is said. And after several months of delays and apologetic emails, my interview with Jean Jacques, Caron in-house perfumer, came to be. Not that the man needed to apologise. It’s been a “crazy few years” since he joined the house in 2018. And it’s only now that he’s getting a chance to breathe and do some interviews in-between.

IMAGE: Caron.

First, some essential background to Caron and Jean Jacques. The house was founded in 1904 by Ernest Daltroff. Together with creative director Félicie Wanpouille, the self-taught perfumer produced numerous all-time classics, including Caron Narcisse Noir Parfum (1911), Caron N’Aimez Que Moi Parfum (1916), Caron Tabac Blond Parfum (1919) and Caron Pour un Homme de Caron EDT (1934), that established the house’s impeccable credentials as one of the greats of French perfumery.

IMAGE: Caron.

As a Jew and with the rise of the Nazis, Ernest Daltroff escaped to America (he died in 1947), leaving Caron in the capable hands of Félicie Wanpouille until 1967. And while the house never quite disappeared and continued to produce standouts, it certainly lost its way and allure for quite some time.

IMAGE: Caron.

Which brings us to the acquisition of the brand in 2018 by Ariane and Benjamin de Rothschild through their investment firm Cattleya Finance. A savvy businesswoman, one of Ariane de Rothschild’s first decisions was to employ Jean Jacques as in-house perfumer.

IMAGE: Caron.

Jean Jacques was on his way to a career in music when a friend told him about ISIPCA, the renowned perfumery school in Versailles. That career change eventually took him to Japan where he worked for the fragrance and flavour company Takasago.

IMAGE: Caron.

While Jean Jacques can’t quite recall his fine fragrance debut (probably Mariella Burani Amuleti EDT in 1999), there’s no doubting his admiration for his mentor Pierre Bourdon, the great perfumer behind classics such as Yves Saint Laurent Kouros EDT, Davidoff Cool Water EDT, Montblanc Individuel EDT, Frédéric Malle French Lover EDP and Creed Green Irish Tweed EDP.

Before joining Caron, Jean Jacques had notched up several successes of his own, including Christian Lacroix C’est la Fête! EDP (2007), Kenzo Eau de Fleur de Soie EDT (2008), Oriflame Love Potion EDP (2011), Givenchy Gentleman Only EDT (2013), Courrèges Hyperbole EDP (2016) and Davidoff Cool Water Wave EDT (2017).

IMAGE: Givenchy.

If you want to know just how busy he’s been since joining Caron, look at the company’s website. Through all the recent releases – “perhaps too many,” he admits – and various collections, the message is clear. Caron is back in business.

When we get to chat, he’s at home and animated about all things Caron. Even though English is not his first language, Jean Jacques speaks fast, eloquently and with much knowledge about the house and ingredients. We talk about his dynamic with Ariane de Rothschild, the challenge of making Caron relevant to a contemporary market and various fragrances.

Your relationship with Ariane de Rothschild is an integral part of Caron. What can you tell us about her?

She knows everything that’s nice in the world, art, she’s a collector. She’s in contact every day with beauty in terms of art, photography, sculpture, painting. Yet she can say, “Wow!” and, “C’est magnifique!” [“It’s magnificent!”]

“This meeting of passion is something that really excites me. There’s a lot of energy, creation and experimentation.”

She’s obviously very passionate about Caron. Something you both have in common…

Oui, oui, this meeting of passion is something that really excites me. There’s a lot of energy, creation and experimentation. Perhaps we did launch too many fragrances in the four years. But now we come back with less, we take more time, but we still have the same passion and energy.

There’s a magnificent heritage to Caron, which started with Ernest Daltroff in 1904. One of your challenges must be to make Caron relevant to a contemporary market. Some might think Caron is old school, old fashioned. How do you get that balance? It can’t be easy?

No, you’re right. I often start from the legacy to make new creations. For example, the collection of Tabac, because there’s Tabac Blond, we make Tabac Noir EDP, then Tabac Exquis EDP and last year Tabac Blanc EDP.

Because of the first one, Tabac Blond Parfum, which is more than 100 years old, I start with the idea of creating a collection of modern tobacco fragrances.

The same with Poivre Sacré EDP. Caron launched a fragrance called Poivre in 1954. Because of that, I make Poivre Sacré EDP, pushing it even further – the level of oils, the balsams, the cumin, the saffron, the spices – to make an explosive fragrance. Starting from the heritage, I created something totally new.

Also with Caron Pour un Homme de Caron EDT, lavender and vanilla, which was created in 1934. I take the lavender but create something new with Caron Pour Un Homme de Caron Le Matin EDT and Caron Pour Un Homme de Caron Le Soir EDP. For the morning, Le Matin, I use lavandin oil and the latest technology, CO2 ginger extract.

For the evening, Le Soir, I use a very nice essence of lavender from Provence. You know, we now have our very own field of lavender in the south of France for Pour Un Homme, but I mix that oil with oakwood extract, which is a totally new ingredient. So once again the legacy but mixed with new ingredients.

IMAGE: Caron.

Sometimes, though, I make something totally new that’s not directly linked to the history of Caron. For example, Caron Musc Oli EDT, which I did with Oliva de Rothschild, featuring the synthetic ingredients Cashmeran FF and Javanol. Normally at Caron, we use lots of natural ingredients but for this one we still used the best synthetics.

The link with Caron is the adventurous spirit. And now Musc Oli is one of our best-sellers. This means this brand can go far in terms of modernity, as long as the story is good.

IMAGE: Caron.

I haven’t tried it yet but have tried Tabac Exquis and Rose Ebène de Caron, which have a gourmand aspect…

Those are also good examples of how I mix history and modernity.

For Tabac Exquis, for instance, a natural extraction of tobacco, cacao and a chocolate accord, which is not natural, but we can recreate the smell of chocolate through molecules.

I love the way you haven’t done obvious gourmands. Are you a gourmand man yourself?

Non [smiles]. But one of the first fragrances we launched was Aimez-Moi Comme Je Suis EDT [2020], a masculine mix of vetiver and hazelnut. I used hazelnut because it’s gourmand but not sugary. There’s too much sugar on the market. It’s important to find our way to be gourmandise.

I wanted to ask you about the one I’m wearing now, Caron Pois de Senteur Parfum, originally created by Ernest Daltroff in 1927, and inspired by the floral sweat pea. How did you approach this recreation?

Oui, oui, it’s more the name that’s important here because sweet pea doesn’t smell strong. Pois de Senteur is an olfactive bomb. There’s a huge amount of natural jasmine and honey molecule in this fragrance. It’s very popular in the Middle East.

“As with all our classics and masterpieces, I had to make a new formulation that respects the IFRA regulations.”

Of course, as with all our classics and masterpieces, I had to make a new formulation that respects the IFRA regulations. What I did for this one and Tabac Blond, Pour un Homme and Narcisse de Noir, each time I worked with the technical support of IFF, the big fragrance creation company, I ask them to analyse the original fragrance.

So I took the 1927 one to make sure it’s legislatively okay. Instead of going with the last version before Caron was bought by Ariane, which had been adapted several times already, I preferred to start with the first one of Daltroff to make sure it’s as close as possible.

For Tabac Blond, natural oakmoss extraction had disappeared from the formulation. A chypre is not a chypre without oakmoss. I brought back the oakmoss absolute in the formula of Tabac Blond.

With IFRA regulations, you must be so careful with ingredients like oakmoss…

Oakmoss is permitted, but you need to make a change to the extraction because the molecule in the ingredient, atranol, is forbidden. So you have to use natural extraction of oakmoss, what we call low atranol, to decrease the concentration of the molecule. If you do that, using oakmoss absolute is not an issue.

The last few years have been intense for you. Do you get time to yourself? Or is perfumery all-consuming?

Oui, oui, you know, I love my job, I think perfume 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But I still have time for making music, my family and golf. I’m just back from England for a big golf tournament, as I’m crazy about the sport. It’s a busy week, I would say, but okay, I’m a lucky guy.

Music is one of your great loves. Have you ever regretted not following that career path?

I decided to give my life to perfumery and it gave me back a lot more. I have my piano over there and play it with my daughter. I can still do my music, and I do, so I’m very happy to give so much energy to perfumery.

One last question, the new collection, Les Colognes Sublimes, which has just been launched…

In fact, last year, but we’re focusing on it now. It’s a collection of five really nice colognes. Five [he emphasises and laughs].

We love their names, inspired by French poetry, even if they are a bit complicated. Champ Bleu du Ciel [from Georges Bataille’s poem of the same name] is not easy to say, especially if you’re not French. L’Invitation Au Voyage comes from the poem by Charles Baudelaire.

Olfactively, they’re really good. L’Invitation Au Voyage, for example, combines violet leaf and cinnamon. It doesn’t sound like they should work together but they do.

IMAGE: Caron.

Are they eau de colognes? I haven’t tried them but from what I’ve read, they’re stronger than conventional colognes.

You’re right. We called them colognes to explain there’s a lot of freshness, but it is not eau de colognes in the historical sense of being concentrated at four to five percent, lots of citrus and not lasting long.

Ivre de Liberté Cologne Sublime, for example, is concentrated at 18%. So there is freshness at the concentration of eau de toilette or eau de parfum. They last longer and are real fragrances with real signatures.

IMAGE: Caron.

Caron fragrances are available in South Africa from Skins Cosmetics.

August 4, 2023

Clement Gavarry Interview: “I Try To Use Naturals As Much As I Can, Because They Allow The Fragrance To Be More Alive”

IMAGE: dsm-firmenich.

The career of Clement Gavarry (see his list of creations below) was doing very nicely, thank you. And then something happened in 2018 with the launch of Ariana Grande Cloud EDP that brought him to the attention of a much wider audience.

This mega-hit should come as no surprise to those who have followed the career of the Frenchman. Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely EDP (co-created with Laurent le Guernec) is an earlier success of his from 2005 and he’s continued to progress over the years with a diverse selection of creations.

+ Matthew Williamson Jasmine Sambac EDP (2007)

+ Tom Ford Black Violet EDP (2007)

+ Elizabeth Arden Untold EDP (2013)

+ Roberto Cavalli Just Him EDT (2013)

+ Diana Vreeland Simply Divine EDP (2014)

+ Olfactive Studio Panorama EDP (2014)

+ Ostens Impression Jasmine Absolue EDP (2018)

+ Abercrombie & Fitch Authentic Man EDT (2019)

+ Guess 1981 Los Angeles Women EDT (2019)

+ Cher Eau de Couture EDP (2019)

+ Oscar de la Renta Bella Essence EDP (2020)

+ Estée Lauder Blushing Sands EDP (2021)

+ Kayali Eden Juicy Apple 01 EDP (2021)

+ MCM EDP (2021)

+ Boy Smells Les EDP (2023)

Clement Gavarry - Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely EDP

IMAGE: Coty Inc.

Despite my best attempts to get Clement Gavarry to reveal specific details about working with clients, especially the high-profile celebrities, he’s too much of a professional to fall for that and keeps it general. And he won’t be drawn into any discussion about supposed similarities between Ariana Grande Cloud and the hugely influential and popular Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540. Darn, I must be losing my touch!

IMAGE: dsm-firmenich.

What fragrance are you wearing today?

Today, none, because I am at work. As I work on so many scents at the same time, I can’t be distracted with what I am wearing.

That said, I normally wear the scents I am working on and in my free time, I love to wear Calvin Klein cK One EDT and Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme EDT – based on the occasions, of course. Another scent I’ve been loving to wear lately is Creed Aventus EDP.

Where did perfumery start for you?

It was something I grew up around and at age 15, I began doing annual fragrance-related internships where I really dove into analysing ingredients. I then went to ISIPCA [the French perfumery school] where I graduated with a Master’s in organic chemistry focused on chromatography.

“It made me feel like I was on a bit of a treasure hunt trying to unlock some of the mysteries for fragrances I knew.” – Clement Gavarry

This was an amazing way to learn about all kinds of ingredients from synthetics to naturals, and it also made me feel like I was on a bit of a treasure hunt trying to unlock some of the mysteries for fragrances I knew.

After my studies, I moved to NYC, where I still am today.

Your father, Max Gavarry, created classics such as Antonio Puig Quorum EDT (1981), Dior Dioressence EDT (1979) and Estée Lauder Beautiful EDP (1985). Was he a big influence on your decision to become a perfumer and did that come with its own pressures?

My father did not push me to become a perfumer. Growing up it was always a thing where people assumed it was what I would do, almost something I wanted to go against. But in the end, I independently fell in love with the scientific side of the industry.

IMAGE: Fragrantica.

You studied at ISIPCA. Was it a formative time for you?

The truth is I studied chemistry first and ISPICA was an added bonus, but my major was organic chemistry.

When I was at IPSICA, I spent most of my time, a good half or two-thirds of the year, doing internships and so that working experience was formative for me.

Clement Gavarry - Diana Vreeland Simply Divine EDP

IMAGE: Diana Vreeland Parfums.

What was your fine fragrance debut? What do you think of it now?

That was in 2004 when I worked on Prada Amber EDP with my mentor and my dad.

It’s still a beautiful fragrance, almost niche without even trying to be. It was a unique experience to work on this project, as there were people involved in this creation from all parts of the world.

IMAGE: Prada.

Although your creations are obviously guided by briefs, what do you always try to give them?

I try to use naturals as much as I can, because they allow the fragrance to be more alive and have a strong signature. They bring an element of surprise because the fragrance is living and there is a lot of chemistry happening within the formula that gives it that point of differentiation.

Clement Gavarry - Olfactive Studio Panorama EDP

IMAGE: Olfactive Studio.

I love Dolce & Gabbana Intenso EDP (2014). What can you tell us about the creation of this scent?

This was a beautiful experience and also quite unique. They decided to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme EDT and because my dad created the original, they asked me to create the new iteration. I, of course, said yes, as I was thrilled to work on such a great scent and initiative.

When did you move to NYC? Does working and living in such a dynamic environment bring something different to your creations?

I moved to NYC in the year 2000. Yes, of course, living in NYC inspires me because it is so dynamic and there is so much happening. Just walking around the city brings me a lot of inspiration; it is truly unlike anywhere else and one of the best places to find inspiration all around.

IMAGE: Dolce & Gabbana.

You work for dsm-firmenich, the Swiss fragrance and flavoUr company. Which of their ingredients / captive molecules do you particularly enjoy using?

I have always loved the dsm-firmenich palette of ingredients, even before working here [from 2000 to 2017, he worked for the American fragrance and flavor company IFF].

I love their captive molecules and this was a big reason why I joined them. The overall palette, from captives to musks, are ingredients I enjoy creating with.

Clement Gavarry - Oscar de la Renta Bella Essence EDP

IMAGE: Oscar de la Renta.

You’ve worked on several celebrity fragrances over the years. For example, Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely EDP (2005), Ariana Grande Cloud EDP (2018), Cher Eau de Couture EDP (2019) and Paris Hilton Love Rush EDP (2022). Is this a genre you enjoy working on? What makes it different to other projects?

There is always a strong connection when you have a celebrity involved in the development and creation, and in trying to translate what they are looking for into a fragrance. It’s nice to work together with them and talking through ingredients, for example, especially if they are interested in learning about the process, because this allows for good communication and a stronger connection.

“Celebrities don’t necessarily go for big blockbusters from the get-go.” – Clement Gavarry

Celebrities always have a different approach in the way they want to create their scents and don’t necessarily go for big blockbusters from the get-go.

Clement Gavarry - Cher Eau de Couture EDP

IMAGE: Cher.

Often, they rather focus on what scent represents them or on something that is dear to them and they have always dreamed about using in their fragrance. This makes the process less business-only and allows us freedom in creativity, which is something I enjoy.

May 11, 2023May 12, 2023

Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense: The Making Of A Gourmand Hit

I don’t like making predictions so early in the year (it’s only May, after all). But I’m willing to put my reputation on the line for Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense as one of the most popular. The 2023 release from the United Arab Emirates-based brand is everywhere at the moment.

PERFUMERS

Father and son Olivier Cresp and Sébastien Cresp teamed up for this scent.

You don’t get more accomplished than Olivier Cresp, the master perfumer behind the gourmand-pioneering Mugler Angel EDP (1992).

He also created Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue EDT (2001), Versace Man Eau Fraiche EDT (2006), Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling EDT (2011), Yves Saint Laurent Black Opium EDP (2014) and Parfums de Marly Sedley EDP (2019). We can thank him (and colleague Nathalie Lorson) for maintaining the consistent quality of the Gentleman Givenchy range. In 2018, he launched his own niche brand, Akro, with his daughter Anaïs Cresp.

While not as well known as his father, Sébastien Cresp is also making his mark in the world of fragrance. His creations include Bath & Body Works Toasted Praline & Pear Fine Fragrance Mist (2019), Confessions of A Rebel Morning After EDP (2021) and Nissaba Provence EDP (2023).

See my interview with the creators of Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense at the end of this review. FYI: the number 33 refers to the amount of formula modifications that went into the creation of the perfume.

Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense - Olivier & Sebastien Cresp

IMAGE: Firmenich.

INSPIRATION

“I wanted to combine my two favourite indulgences, fragrance & gelato! Ever since I can remember, ice cream has been my favourite food and always my #1 choice when asked what would be my last meal!

“In 2014, I went on a trip to Rome with my sister Alya and discovered pistachio gelato – I have been OBSESSED ever since! Just like the dreamy dessert, I wanted to create something that made me feel yummy, happy and irresistible!

“Working with Olivier Cresp (a world-renowned perfumer who is often credited as the ‘father’ of gourmand fragrances) and his son, Sébastien, was SO exciting. With every delicious spritz, you’ll feel like YOU ARE the dessert! – brand founder Mona Kattan

Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense - Mona Kattan

IMAGE: Huda Beauty.

SO WHAT DOES KAYALI YUM PISTACHIO GELATO 33 EDP INTENSE SMELL LIKE?

It makes an impression right from the start. Pistachio can be a salty, savoury note but here it’s given the sweet gourmand treatment with an ice cream(y) accord that features the crisp citrus tones of bergamot and the additional woody nuttiness of hazelnut. The combo of cardamom and rum brings an element of spicy booziness to the treat.

There’s some floral-fruitiness in the mix too, but I’d be hard pushed to identify any specific notes. Nevertheless, it enhances the fresh aspect of the scent.

It’s in the drydown that Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense comes into its own. There’s a whole lot of powderiness via marshmallow, cotton candy (the synthetic ethyl maltol at work here, well known for its use in Mugler Angel EDP and Maison Francis Kurkdjian Baccarat Rouge 540) and a Turkish delight accord. I like how the latter gives a nod to brand founder Mona Kattan’s Middle Eastern heritage and reinforces the pistachio-ness of the composition (the nut is an integral part of the confection).

Most of all, though, it’s the whipped and sandalwood creaminess blended with vanilla-ish tonka beans that leaves a lasting impression.

As with many fragrances from the company – for example, Kayali Vanilla 28 EDP (2018), Kayali Déjà Vu White Flower 57 EDP (2020), Kayali Invite Only Amber 23 EDP (2021) – it’s unashamedly on the sweet spectrum.

Beauty entrepreneur Mona Kattan (Kayali falls under the Huda Beauty umbrella) is very in tune with what consumers want from their fragrances: boldness, distinctiveness and pleasure. And Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense delivers in all those ways. Yes, it’s being hyped, but that doesn’t stop it from being a delicious scent. Anyone looking for crowd-pleasing upliftment and escapism with addictive sugariness will appreciate this one.

Kayali fragrances are available in South Africa from Arc Store.

INTERVIEW WITH OLIVIER CRESP & SÉBASTIEN CRESP, THE CREATORS OF KAYALI YUM PISTACHIO GELATO 33 EDP INTENSE

I go behind the scent scenes to find out more about the creation of the hit.

Is this the first time you’ve worked together on a fragrance?

Sébastien Cresp (SC): No, my father is my mentor and [role] model since my childhood, so I obviously always discussed his trials [perfume tests] a lot with him. Naturally, when I became a perfumer, we started to share ideas, giving input to each other.

I love working with my father because when we share our ideas, we directly confront our points of view, and above all, we understand each other immediately. This creative dialogue between us is an extremely enriching experience for me.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

Olivier Cresp (OC): We are collaborating more and more together; we have already signed several fragrances together [for example: Aerin Lauder Rose de Grasse Pour Filles EDT (2021), Victoria’s Secret VS Him Deepwater EDP (2021) and O.U.i Original Unique Individuel Jardin de Grasse EDP (2021)].

It is a pleasure to exchange and discuss our ideas. Sébastien is very creative, and I enjoy working with my son. I am increasingly focused on passing on my legacy.

Aerin Lauder Rose de Grasse Pour Filles EDT

IMAGE: Aerin Lauder.

How would you describe the Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense creation experience?

OC: Sébastien always leads me to explore new olfactive fields of possibilities, and Mona was also really challenging on her desire to create an ultimate gourmand fragrance.

She was involved in all stages of creation and challenged us on the pleasure that her fragrance should give. Mona wanted a perfume that pushed more and more gourmand as the different modifications went on. We shaped the notes together to achieve the result she wanted, an ultra-gourmand creation that makes your mouth water.

IMAGE: Huda Beauty.

Did you have different ideas on how to execute this scent?

OC: The initial idea I submitted was to create what I called “a gourmand explosion”, a fragrance inspired by a dessert, built like a pastry with layers of different sweet and tasty notes, such as cacao, rum, cotton candy and vanilla.

“Our internal code name for this project was ‘Yum’ and when Mona read it on our sample, she felt like it was the perfect name.”

SC: Then Mona talked about her love for pistachio gelato and I had this idea to turn my father’s initial formula into a sweet pistachio ice-cream by adding, of course, a pistachio accord but also more milky notes. Our internal code name for this project was “Yum” and when Mona read it on our laboratory sample, she felt like it was the perfect name to describe this fragrance.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

How did you get this fragrance to be so creamy? Any particular ingredients?

SC: We started with an aroma formula to translate the pistachio as close as possible to the edible version with its mouthwatering dimension. We combined the STT (Smell the Taste) pistachio with milky notes to reinforce the creaminess, the lightness and obtain the “pistachio gelato” effect.

There is indeed a feeling of a fluffy creaminess, very enveloping, which is the result of the association of the main three unique ingredients: a cotton candy accord, a Marshmallow STT and a Chantilly STT.

STT means “Smell the Taste”, a technique drawn by the expertise of Firmenich flavorists for perfumers and their creations to express tastes into fragrances.

The Marshmallow STT is a gourmand, creamy and slightly powdery note, while the Chantilly STT offers a light and fresh note of fluffy whipped cream. To boost its daring and liquorous effect, we blended it with rum for its fruity, oak woods undertones and Bourbon vanilla accents. This charismatic addiction is an original creation with a strong gourmand and sensual signature.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

With your pioneering gourmand background, I must ask if you enjoy eating gourmand treats as much as you enjoy smelling and creating them?

OC: Of course! I’m lucky to live in Paris where I can enjoy the finest pastry. To be entirely honest, part of this fragrance was fed by the magnificent pastry “trompe l’oeil” of the chef Cédric Grolet, which created a pistachio cake, very sophisticated and texturized, that Sébastien and I discovered during afternoon tea-time at Le Meurice [the hotel where Grolet is the executive pastry chef].

May 5, 2023May 8, 2023

Captive Molecules: Frank Voelkl Reveals All (Mostly)

IMAGE: Firmenich.

The last time I chatted with Frank Voelkl, I instinctively knew he would enlighten me about the importance of synthetics in modern perfumery. So I turned once again to the New York-based perfumer to find out more about the intriguing (and often secretive) world of captive molecules.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

Who created the decade-defining Le Labo Santal 33 EDP (2011) and helped kick-start the Ariana Grande fragrance empire with Ari EDP (2015)? That would be the German-born perfumer. He’s also the creator of the fragrances below, among others:

+ Dunhill X-Centric EDT (2001)

+ Kenneth Cole Reaction EDT (2004)

+ Sarah Jessica Parker Covet EDP (2007)

+ Oscar de la Renta Esprit d’Oscar EDP (2011)

+ Ermenegildo Zegna Florentine Iris EDP (2012)

+ Paris Hilton Dazzle EDP (2012)

+ Gucci Bamboo EDP (2015)

+ Dolce & Gabbana Velvet Amber Sun EDP (2017)

+ Glossier You EDP (2017, in collaboration with Dora Baghriche)

+ Hugo Boss Hugo Now EDT (2020)

+ Kilian Roses On Ice EDP (2020)

+ Boy Smells Marble Fruit Cologne de Parfum (2021, in collaboration with Hamid Kashani )

+ Aedes de Venustas 16a Orchard EDP (2021)

+ Abercrombie & Fitch Authentic Self Man EDT (2023)

+ Ellis Brooklyn Florist EDP (2023)

Before we get to the actual interview, some general background info on the workings of perfumery: The fragrance (and flavour) industry is dominated by several multinationals: Firmenich (Switzerland), Givaudan (Switzerland), International Flavors & Fragrances (America), Symrise (Germany), Takasago (Japan), Mane (France) and Robertet (France).

These corporates have a vast array of ingredients (naturals, synthetics and increasingly biotechnology) to be used by their perfumers.

IMAGE: Ariana Grande Fragrances.

What fragrances do you wear?

I like to wear different fragrances for different moments and occasions. For example, I wear Le Labo Santal 33 when I go out because it’s rich, warm, has a lot of signature and it’s my way of making a statement.

When I am on vacation, I wear Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò Profumo. There is a nice balance of freshness and woody elegance, but it still feels casual.

When I travel and board a plane, I wear Hermès Terre d’Hermès as it has such a nice presence and I will smell myself more than anything or anybody else around me.

Where did perfumery start for you?

It really started for me when I was living in Paris as a teenager in the Eighties. I discovered my passion for fragrance and learned there are actually people who create them called perfumers. That sparked my desire to pursue this career.

IMAGE: Ellis Brooklyn.

When you studied at ISIPCA, were you aware of the existence of captive molecules?

I wasn’t aware of that back then, as my focus at the time centred on imprinting any molecules and natural ingredients into my olfactive memory. It was only once I entered a fragrance house (my first employer was Haarmann & Reimer) that I started understanding how powerful captive ingredients can be.

IMAGE: Hugo Boss.

What was your fine fragrance debut?

My first real debut in fine fragrance was when I succeeded in creating Tiare de Chantecaille EDP in 1997, which was right around the time when the first niche brands started emerging.

I had the opportunity to meet Sylvie de Chantecaille who was getting ready to create her brand. She was looking for an exotic floral fragrance, got hooked on tiare and the fact that I had a personal connection to this iconic flower from Tahiti (my wife is from there and I go to the island almost every year since I met her 30 years ago), we decided to work on this fragrance together around it.

IMAGE: Chantecaille.

Without going into too much technical detail, how would you define captive molecules? And what are some of the most well-known examples?

A molecule is considered captive when a fragrance house such as Firmenich discovers a new fragrance ingredient that is only made available to their own perfumer team rather than being sold to a competitive fragrance house. That means it is exclusively used in fragrances from Firmenich, created by Firmenich perfumers.

In addition, when a team of scientists discovers a new molecule, it will protect it with a patent to avoid any other company copying or manufacturing that same ingredient. So it’s a powerful concept, as captive means exclusive.

MUGUET RELEASE: The lily-of-the-valley synthetic Muguissimo. IMAGE: Firmenich.

Eventually, captives will be released, for example, when the patent has expired and so then they can be taken and recreated. We can decide as a company if we want to release some of our captives to others. Some great examples of captives that we have released in the past are [the lily-of-the-valley synthetic] Muguissimo (2022) and [the aquatic synthetic] Cascalone (2020).

AQUA INNOVATION: The synthetic Cascalone. IMAGE: Firmenich.

Are they becoming more important in the creation process?

Captive molecules, as well as captive natural ingredients, have always played an important role in my creations, especially because Firmenich has quite a few captive ingredients available to their perfumers.

They have become more important in recent years as transparency is on the rise and consumers are more interested in the content and the origin of the ingredients used in their products.

Are captive molecules synthetic or natural ingredients?

Captives can be both. They can be molecules / synthetics, or they can be natural ingredients.

Firmenich has a molecule research centre in Geneva, Switzerland, and a Naturals Centre of Excellence in Grasse, France, which both work on finding the next new captives.

Captive Molecules - Calvin Klein Eternity For Men Parfum

IMAGE: Calvin Klein.

Are you incentivised to use Firmenich captive molecules in your creations?

Yes, and the biggest incentive is to have a fragrance creation that nobody outside of Firmenich would be able to recreate. We all know there are some market products out there inspired by previous existing creations, and so using captives allows perfumers to have unique formulas that are not easily copied.

“Using captives allows perfumers to have unique formulas that are not easily copied”

As perfumers, we naturally want to use them in our creations, as it gives us a competitive advantage and edge when we work on projects both for hedonics and for performance.

Captive Molecules - Ariana Grande Mod Blush EDP

IMAGE: Ariana Grande Fragrances.

You’ve created several fragrances for Le Labo. For example: Iris 39, Santal 33, Ylang 49 and Thé Noir 29. And Ariana Grande Ari is one of your many other successes. Did you use any Firmenich captive molecules in their creation?

Sorry, I cannot really share all that information, but I can assure you that almost every single one of my creations will likely contain at least one or two captives from Firmenich in the formula.

That said, here are a few recent creations containing captives, but as they are captives I can’t name them all… Ariana Grande Mod Blush EDP (2022) contains Dreamwood. Calvin Klein Eternity for Men Parfum (2022) contains one of our most recent captives. Le Labo Thé Matcha 26 EDP (2021) contains four captives (two naturals, two synthetics).

I’m seeing the International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) captive molecule Cashmeran everywhere. Does Firmenich have an equivalent captive molecule?

Cashmeran was indeed originally a captive from IFF, but it has been available for anyone to use for quite some time since 1983. It’s certainly unique in its character and is still trending. It’s not biodegradable, though, so we may see the end of it soon.

Firmenich has its own iconic molecules, such as Muscenone Delta or Helvetolide [both synthetic musks].

ICONIC MOLECULE: The synthetic musk Helvetolide. IMAGE: Firmenich.

Could you tell me how you used a specific Firmenich captive molecule in one of your most recent creations? What did it bring to the composition?

Dreamwood is one of the latest Firmenich captive molecules stemming from our biotechnology research, a milestone in our ingredient advancements.

Natural sandalwood oil has become so rare that I got really excited to be able to use a natural sandalwood note like Dreamwood in a sustainable way. I have used it since the moment it was available to us in 2020. I love the incredible creaminess and comfort it adds to my creations. On top of that, it has benefits beyond its scent such as antimicrobial, antioxidant and soothing effects.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

Le Labo Thé Matcha 26 EDP and Santal 33 EDP are available in South Africa from Skin Cosmetics.

March 8, 2023March 11, 2023

HARRY FRÉMONT INTERVIEW: “POWER GOES AGAINST BEAUTY. THAT’S THE FRAGRANCE CREATION CONUNDRUM”

IMAGE: Firmenich.

I started following Harry Frémont on Instagram sometime in 2022 and was immediately impressed by his gardening. Could this be the Harry Frémont, the master perfumer behind a legion of classics (see below)? Had he retired? And if so, why, and what was he up to now? My journalistic mind was spinning away and needed answers.

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

After several DM exchanges, Harry Frémont came back to me with emailed replies to my questions. But before I get to the meat of that, a bit of background on the man who during his more than three-decade career created fragrance hits such as:

+ Aramis New West For Him EDT (1988)

+ Calvin Klein cK One EDT (1994)

+ Ralph Lauren Polo Sport EDT (1994)

+ Lancôme Miracle EDP (2000)

+ Michael Kors Michael For Men EDT (2001)

+ Kenneth Cole Black For Men EDT (2003)

+ Avon Extraordinary EDP (2005)

+ Juicy Couture EDP (2006)

+ Vera Wang Princess EDT (2006)

+ Tom Ford Noir de Noir EDP (2007)

+ Tom Ford Tuscan Leather EDP (2007)

+ Harajuku Lovers Baby EDT (2008)

+ Diesel Fuel For Life Unlimited EDP (2008)

+ Tom Ford Grey Vetiver EDP (2009)

+ Britney Spears Cosmic Radiance EDP (2011)

+ Clean Clean Skin EDP (2012)

+ Estée Lauder Modern Muse EDP (2013)

+ Yves Saint Laurent Mon Paris EDP (2016)

+ Oscar de la Renta Bella Blanca EDP (2018)

IMAGE: Lancôme.

Born in Cannes, France, and a graduate of the prestigious Isipca perfumery school, Harry Frémont moved to New York City in 1990 as the Swiss company Firmenich’s first full-time perfumer there. Instrumental in establishing the firm’s credentials in the all-important American market, he received several Fragrance Foundation Awards, including 2003 Fragrance of the Year – Women’s Luxury for Vera Wang EDP, 2004 Fragrance of the Year – Men’s Prestige for Kenneth Cole Black For Men EDT, 2007 Fragrance of the Year – Women’s Prestige for Juicy Couture EDP and the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Harry Frémont - The Fragrance Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award

IMAGE: Firmenich.

Now, officially retired, his answers reflect a freedom from the stifling demands of corporate life, insights into a changing industry and the joy of immersing himself in what truly matters. It’s a longer interview than usual, with so much astute detail, so pour yourself a glass of your favourite and enjoy.

IMAGE: Firmenich.

What fragrance are you wearing today? Why did you choose it?

I am not wearing any fragrance today. We live in the middle of nature and I love fragrances, but nothing is better than fresh air, the smell of trees, leaves, grass, the wind or the rain.

I occasionally wear fragrance when we go into town but always very little, as almost no one wears fragrance in rural California. I always go back to the same one: the original Purple Label EDT from Ralph Lauren [2003] that I created and a woody fragrance that I worked to death for a project that I lost (weirdly enough, I go back to my first trial).

Harry Frémont - Ralph Lauren Purple Label EDT

IMAGE: Ralph Lauren.

From time to time, I also wear two classics: Calvin Klein for Men Eternity EDT [1990] and a fragrance I always wore when travelling as a perfumer: Giorgio Armani Acqua di Giò EDT [1996].

You retired in 2018. You mentioned in our initial chat on IG that the industry was changing. Please elaborate on how this influenced your decision to retire.

Difficult question to answer without going back to the big changes the industry went through in the last 30 years, in NYC, in particular, but also globally. My decision to retire is more linked to the evolution of the fine fragrance business rather than the changes before 2018.

I also want to say I am grateful for being part of that business for so many years. You always have young people who are beginning with the same passion and enthusiasm I had when I started. I find this very refreshing.

The 1990s were my first decade in NYC and America. It was hard at the beginning because Firmenich [the Swiss fragrance and flavour company he worked for] was a newcomer, but by ’92/’93 we started being successful and the business had a lot of glamour. Most of the top sellers were from American companies, products with strong concepts and an enticing style of perfumery: fresh, transparent, very floral, clean woods…

The [economic] crisis of 2000 and September 11 changed everything: the department store fragrance business started to suffer, possibly because a lot of cosmetic brands and make-up artists started to take over the fragrance floor. Speciality retail, with Bath & Body Works and Victoria’s Secret, were growing by leaps and bounds, churning out new products all the time. The fine fragrance concepts were not as strong and precise. Fragrances started to become heavier and our clients had a lot of hesitations to take decisions.

IMAGE: Bath & Body Works.

At the same time every celebrity wanted a fragrance. The fragrance business in Latin America, especially Brazil, was becoming more and more important.

Requests for flankers were starting to appear. All this increased tremendously the amount of work created for the perfumers and we had to adapt.

“At the beginning it was exciting and you felt powerful but it became like an exhausting mind game or an addiction.” – Harry Frémont

Around 2000, some of us perfumers discovered we could work remotely, transferring formula modifications to our office or affiliate if the evaluators at the office were giving us the right comments. From that point I never unplugged, even when on vacation or travelling, except for the week between Christmas and New Year when the company was closed. At the beginning it was exciting and you felt powerful but it became like an exhausting mind game or an addiction. Even if my focus was our North American clients, I was working on a crazy number of projects at the same time in different time zones.

Harry Frémont - O Boticário Love Lily EDP

IMAGE: O Boticário.

Then came the [economic] crisis of 2008 and the decade that followed was not my favourite. A lot of things changed again. You had to work much more to win business, which was becoming very fragmented and with most of the time a short shelf-life, with the launch of so many flankers, it became difficult to build classics.

Niche and boutique fragrances were emerging. At the beginning I thought they would save us and bring back the quality we were losing in fine fragrance and they kind of did. But they confused customers even more…

Some of our clients started development teams for all their different brands, looking for new ideas without concepts and then working these fragrances to death with heavy consumer tests.

The business model of the flavour and fragrance companies needed to evolve. Symrise and IFF followed the example of Givaudan and finally Firmenich did the same last year with the merger with DSM [the Dutch health, nutrition and bioscience company]. All evolving into bigger multinational corporations and branching out into health, nutrition, etc, and providing a wider range of products and services bringing the budget for research, safety, testing, sourcing, etc. The fragrance industry today is the sum of so many competencies and synergies.

Harry Frémont - Victoria's Secret Dream Angels Desire EDP

IMAGE: Victoria’s Secret.

After working 28 years in NYC, I had built strong relationships with clients and some of them were leaving the industry to be replaced with young people who didn’t have necessarily the same experience. On a personal level, even if I still had this passion for fragrance creation, the process was becoming less fulfilling, sometimes really frustrating, and a new life was waiting for me and my family in California, where we had found our happy place and where I could enjoy my other passion to the fullest: gardening! It was time for me to go.

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

From your Instagram page, it looks like you are well on your way to becoming a Master Gardener. Was gardening always a passion of yours, or did this develop in recent years?

Gardening has always been a passion of mine; I started when I was five years old in my parents’ garden in Cannes. Living in northern California is almost like reliving my childhood with a Mediterranean climate.

After gardening for 28 years in New York, it is like gardening paradise if you have water: we have no rain from May to October, so the flowers have a long blooming time, with almost no disease on roses and vegetables. Because of the mild rainy winters, you can also play with wild flowers. Seeding them before the first rain, they grow all winter to explode in colourful blooms when April comes.

GREEN FINGERS: Harry Frémont with one of his grand-daughters in the greenhouse he built himself. IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

Is gardening similar to perfumery in any ways?

Absolutely! In both cases you need to be patient and then you need to have the vision for what you want to create. Pick the right plants with the right colours to blend together. You have to be sure one plant is not going to overtake the other. Colour, odour, they are remarkably similar if you blend them right, they can really express emotions. When you love someone flowers and perfumes are the best gifts! (Okay, there is also chocolate.)

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

Gardening like creating perfumes is hard work. One is back-breaking and the other can be mind-bending; there is a steep learning curve but you keep learning year after year. As a perfumer it took me 10 to 15 years to feel I was mastering the craft. For gardening, experience is important too but sometimes if you move location with a different climate, you have to learn again.

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

Beyond the creativity and experience, I always said that communication skills are vital to be a successful perfumer. Perfumes are so subjective but when someone makes comments about a fragrance there is always something true about them. So you need to listen, understand, translate in your formula and then explain what you did so the evaluator or the client feel confident and understand what you did is the right decision.

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

With gardening there is no one to talk to (which is refreshing!) but you still need to read the signs from nature about the soil, the plant and take the right action to answer their need. Like with perfumes you need to be curious, observe to get the intuition for what you need to do.

“I am totally convinced that I would not have been a good perfumer if I did not have this love for nature and gardening.” – Harry Frémont

I am totally convinced that I would not have been a good perfumer if I did not have this love for nature and gardening. Smells from nature – flowers, woods, leaves, etc – have always been my biggest source of inspiration.

IMAGE: Harry Frémont.

From your IG page, I see you’ve also spoken out about Donald Trump. What are your thoughts on the current state of American politics?

Honestly, it is quite depressing. I love this country and the USA is my adopted country. No politician has ever made me more upset. You can call me a Never Trumper and I thank him for becoming a Democrat for the rest of my life.

His lie about the 2020 election being stolen and the fact that Republican members of Congress keep supporting this, plus that possibly 30% of the US population still believe this lie, is just mind-boggling. This is a danger for the country, democracy, freedom and the world – look at what just happened in Brazil, mimicking the attack on Congress from 6 January.

The Republican Party is becoming like a rogue organisation populated by unhinged people, not respecting the norms and unfortunately on the wrong side of history about everything from renewable energy to women’s rights, gun control, immigration, science, you name it. They have no program, except the culture war and cutting taxes for the wealthy and corporations.

They will never win again the popular vote in a presidential election. There is a growing division between rural and urban voters and our electoral system in the constitution has a built-in bias towards rural Republicans: why is that Wyoming (a beautiful state) with a population of 580 000 gets three electoral votes, when California with 39,5 million people has only 55 votes? If the ratio was correct, we should have 200. And two Senate seats for every state? This is a joke. No wonder it is so difficult to pass legislation in Congress that will benefit every citizen.

IMAGE: Donald J Trump.

Did you always know you wanted to become a perfumer? Or was there another career option for you?

Because of my love of gardening and flowers I wanted to be a landscape designer. I tried to get into an engineer horticultural school in France but I failed the entrance exam, so I did a first degree of biology at Nice University. At the time I wanted to stay in the south of France, so I was looking for a career possibility there and a school to learn a job.

IMAGE: Université Côte d’Azur.

One of my parent’s neighbours was in the fragrance business and introduced me to someone in Grasse who had been to this school called ISIPCA in Versailles. With my first degree I could apply to enter directly in the second year and I got accepted. At the time I knew absolutely nothing about perfumes and I went there without really knowing what to expect. My motivation was to stay in the south of France and work in Grasse, which I never did.

IMAGE: ISIPCA.

After your studies at ISIPCA, what did you have to learn for yourself through experience?

Honestly, everything! ISIPCA was a fantastic school – after three years you had general knowledge of the fragrance business and the goal at the time was not really to teach you how to be a perfumer even if some of us became one.

We had a wonderful lady who taught us perfumery, Monique Schlienger, and one day we had to do a lilac, so she gave us materials to mix together. I started simple trials and after I compared them on blotters, one suddenly smelled exactly like my memory from the lilac that grew in my garden every spring. That was it! I had found a new career and a new passion. I had also found love, as I met my wife at ISIPCA.

IMAGE: The Perfume Society.

To go back to your question, once I graduated from this school, I had to learn everything to become a perfumer. I was never part of a training programme and never had a mentor. I just started at Haarmann & Reimer (H&R, now part of Symrise) in 1982 at their Paris office as an assistant perfumer, compounding formulas for another perfumer, and worked my way up working on the side when I had free time. Like many perfumers I am an introvert and we have this particularity: when we find something we are passionate about, we spend most of our energy to learn about it.

“Like many perfumers I am an introvert and we have this particularity: when we find something we are passionate about, we spend most of our energy to learn about it.” – Harry Frémont

As I had access to a gas chromatography machine and became pretty good at using it, once I understood the structure of the classics and the fragrances that were successful in the 1980s, I started doing some creations. I was extremely curious at the time and knew every fragrance sold in department stores from every fragrance house that existed (the market was simpler than now).

I was lucky and won in ’83 and ’84 the young perfumer contest for best fragrance from the Société Française des Parfumeurs. In ’85 H&R gave me the title of perfumer after a four-month stay in Germany.

Harry Frémont - Yves Saint Laurent Mon Paris EDP

IMAGE: Yves Saint Laurent.

I have always been hard working. We didn’t have a TV at the time and for five years, every evening after the kids were sleeping, I was working at home for at least two hours, sometimes on the weekends. So when I joined Firmenich Geneva in 1987 I decided I would never work from home again, until I realised I could work on formulas remotely in 2000.

Harry Frémont - Estée Lauder Modern Muse EDP

IMAGE: Estée Lauder.

In Geneva I was kind of sheltered from clients but when I arrived in NYC, I realized that to be successful I also needed to become much better at communication. So it took me a few years to understand the power of words to describe a fragrance, as well as trying to read the body language from the people I was working with.

IMAGE: Aramis.

What was your fine fragrance debut and what do you think of it now?

It was a fragrance for men in an unusual black bottle for an obscure client at H&R. I don’t remember the name, but I remember it was quite expensive and I used great raw materials, natural and molecules, to create it. It was extremely woody and kind of smoky-leathery (leather smells are one of my obsessions). If I could smell it now, I would find it old-fashioned.

Calvin Klein cK One (which you co-created with Alberto Morillas) was one of your earlier successes. Why do you think it was and still is such a hit?

It is a combination of the character of the fragrance – fresh and easy to wear – with the way it lasts on skin. This creation has a trail and aura without being overpowering.

Many fragrances today are just too strong, which makes them difficult to wear for yourself and the people around you. To be an enduring success, you need to have this feel-good effect for yourself and constant reinforcement from the people around you that this fragrance is so good on you. That’s how classics are made.

“To be an enduring success, you need to have this feel-good effect for yourself and constant reinforcement from the people around you that this fragrance is so good on you.” – Harry Frémont

Also, the concept, the simplicity of the bottle and its sea-glass soft feeling in your hand that convey a certain sensuality that you find in the fragrance after a few hours on skin. People think fresh for cK One because of the citrus-aromatic feeling on top but there is this hidden sensuality with the woods, the musk combination and even a tiny tinge of vanilla.

Tom Ford Grey Vetiver must be one of my favourite creations of yours. What can you tell us about its creation? And what was it like working with Mr Ford on this project?

Tom Ford Grey Vetiver is possibly one of the most fulfilling projects I worked on. I have always loved the raw material vetiver oil. It is one of the most complex essential oils, analytically but also from an olfactive point of view with so many facets you can play with and blend with other materials.

Harry Frémont - Tom Ford Grey Vetiver EDP

IMAGE: Tom Ford.

I always wanted to do a high-end vetiver fragrance and I tried many times with different clients but they were afraid to do that (thinking it was too polarising) and I never had enough money to make a great one. When we got this brief from Karyn Khoury [Senior Vice President of Fragrance Development Worldwide for The Estée Lauder Companies], I was so excited. I could see what Mr Ford wanted with this new request – the level of sophistication, almost like a classic with a modern twist – having worked on Black Orchid (that we had lost to Givaudan) and some of the Private Blend Collection like Tuscan Leather, White Suede and Noir de Noir.

KEEP IT BRIEF: Karyn Khoury, Senior Vice President of Fragrance Development Worldwide for The Estée Lauder Companies. IMAGE: Estée Lauder.

I started working on it with the idea of building the whole fragrance around vetiver. Quickly I realised, even with the good amount of money Lauder had given us to work with, it wasn’t enough, especially because we had this amazing CO2 vetiver roots extract – the perfumer’s dream vetiver without any of the bad notes that you find sometimes in the regular oil, very pure with a lot of depth and character.

Harry Frémont - Tom Ford Tuscan Leather EDP

IMAGE: Tom Ford.

My idea was to show this vetiver in its best light and as the main character. I had, of course, to convince the salesperson who explained the situation to Karyn who accepted to look at my creation. I had worked so much on vetiver blends in the past that the fragrance came together quickly and I didn’t do too many trials once I had found the right balance between the citrus-aromatic slightly fruity top, some floral spices in the mid and modern woods and musks in the back.

Harry Frémont - Tom Ford White Suede EDP

IMAGE: Tom Ford.

The stars were aligned: both Karyn Khoury and Tom Ford liked and picked my fragrance. We did some tweaks to it but nothing drastic. The following year in 2010, we won The Fragrance Foundation Perfume Extraordinaire of the Year. Mr Ford has a real vision for the fragrance he is looking for and has a keen eye for details and quality fabric for his fashion or fragrance materials. Grey Vetiver, for me, is like a tailored men’s suit that fits you perfectly with a light, high-quality fabric like Italian super 150’s wool.

“Mr Ford has a real vision for the fragrance he is looking for and has a keen eye for details and quality fabric for his fashion or fragrance materials.” – Harry Frémont

I didn’t meet Tom Ford for Grey Vetiver – the development went very fast. But I met him many times during the development for Black Orchid and at the beginning of the Private Blend Collection.

Ermenegildo Zegna Indonesian Oud (2012) is superb stuff. You co-created this with Pierre Negrin, Frank Voelkl and Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud. How did you contribute to it?

Hehe, this is quite funny! If I remember correctly, this fragrance was originally created by Jacques and after a few years there was a colouration problem. I worked on it to fix it without changing the character… not very glamorous! I think Frank and Pierre worked on it after I left the company, as they relaunched the line not long ago. I am not 100% sure.

Harry Frémont - Ermenegildo Zegna Indonesian Oud

IMAGE: Ermenegildo Zegna.

What did you try to achieve with all your creations?

Beauty and make people happy, make them feel good. Both are difficult to achieve because as a perfumer you don’t work in a vacuum and you have to deal with many opinions to finish a fragrance. But in my head, I had always this compass to guide me through the numerous modifications.

Harry Frémont - Ralph Lauren Glamourous EDP

IMAGE: Ralph Lauren.

Fragrance is one of the most subjective things, so every time you do this journey from your original idea/creation to the finished fragrance that will be launched, it is always a challenge and every day you must find solutions within your vision to modify the fragrance to address the concerns from your client or even the people you work with.

This is why I compare sometimes fragrance development to a mind game. To stay in control, you must time your mods [modifications] during the course of a project. Unfortunately, it happens quite often that you lose control. That’s why you have all this teamwork going on between perfumers on the big projects.

Harry Frémont - Calvin Klein Eternity Moment EDP

IMAGE: Calvin Klein.

People forget that our sense of smell originally exists to make the difference between safe and danger the smell of fire, gas, spoiled food. And when you create a fragrance, you need to take this into account; you want people who are wearing your fragrance to send a safe message to others; it is beyond seduction.

“I was always against fragrances that are overtly strong, almost aggressive, and are overwhelming for people around you. Power goes against beauty.” – Harry Frémont

This is the reason why I was always against all these fragrances that are overtly strong, almost aggressive, and are overwhelming for people around you. Unfortunately, for many people power is quality and goes beyond the real signature of the fragrance. Power goes against beauty, that’s the fragrance creation conundrum.

Of your many creations, is there one that has special significance for you?

Very difficult question! I guess I will say Romance from Ralph Lauren because going back to what I was saying above, it has everything I love about fragrance.

I was always pretty good at doing men’s fragrance but at the beginning of my career I was struggling with women’s fragrance. Romance was an important step for me to be successful in NYC. Also, years later so many women told me that it was the fragrance they wore in high school or college and how important it was for the image they wanted to project of themselves at the time. My mom wore it too and every time I smelled it, it reminded me of her.

Between these stories, smelling the fragrance in the street and the success, what could be more special?

You won several awards during your career. Where do you keep your them?

Awards are always special but once you are retired, you just need to look at them to feel great about your achievements in your previous life. They are very personal, so I have all of them in my bedroom at home.

People say you cannot create memories if you don’t have an emotion and it is so true. I could describe every minute from the event where I received them and my relief after every acceptance speech.

January 28, 2023

Jean-Christophe Hérault Interview: “Those Fireplace And Leather Notes Conjure Up An Entire World”

IMAGE: IFF.

Creed Aventus. We’ve all heard of the decade-defining fragrance. But it’s only recently that its creator, Jean-Christophe Hérault, is being acknowledged for his part in its phenomenal success. Read my interview with Gabe Oppenheim, author of The Ghost Perfumer: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century (Solicitude), for more on that scented saga.

Jean-Christophe Hérault deserves all the credit he’s getting for that 2010 release that’s spawned a mini-industry of clones, dupes and smell-a-likes (Oppenheim’s book again provides admirable detail here). But, as the summary below of some of his creations shows, there’s so much more to the Paris-based perfumer than Creed Aventus.

+ Balenciaga Florabotanica EDP (2012)

+ Comme des Garçons Amazingreen EDP (2012)

+ Karl Lagerfeld For Him EDT (2014)

+ Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Extreme EDP (2015)

+ Boucheron Ambre d’Alexandrie EDP (2017)

+ Mugler Alien Man EDT (2018)

+ Azzaro Wanted Girl EDP (2019)

+ Paco Rabanne Lady Million Empire EDP (2019)

+ Dolce & Gabbana The One For Men EDP Intense (2020)

+ Roberto Cavalli Paradise Found For Men EDT (2020)

+ Coach Open Road EDT (2022)

+ Valentino Uomo Born In Roma Coral Fantasy EDT (2022)

+ Jacques Fath Vetiver Gris Parfum (2022)

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Balenciaga Florabotanica EDP

IMAGE: Balenciaga.

While his father produced concentrates for the fragrance industry and Jean-Christophe Hérault initially pursued an internship in fragrance control after studying chemistry, his life took a dramatic turn when he met Pierre Bourdon.

The legendary perfumer (creator of Yves Saint Laurent Kouros EDT, Davidoff Blue Water EDT and Creed Green Irish Tweed EDP, among others) noticed something special in him and took him on as a trainee perfumer. This involved reading Marcel Proust’s classic six-volume novel In Search of Lost Time (Le Temps Perdu) before learning any of the technical expertise of the profession.

Early creations of Jean-Christophe Hérault include Canali Men EDT (2005), Grès My Dream Hommage à Marlene Dietrich EDP (2008) and Canali dal 1934 EDP (2009). They saw the perfumer playing with the pineapple note he perfected in Creed Aventus.

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Grès My Dream Hommage à Marlene

IMAGE: Parfums Grès.

In this interview, the senior perfumer at International Fragrance & Flavors (IFF) talks about the influence of Pierre Bourdon, his fondness for smoky, leathery notes and the power of wonderment.

IMAGE: IFF.

You grew up between Paris and Oise (north of Paris) and your father produced concentrates for the perfume industry. Did you know from an early age that you wanted to become a perfumer?

Since childhood, I have always been attracted to scents and perfumes. Perfumes are olfactive stories that move people on a different scale, much more profoundly and durably than other perceptions.

I initially worked in quality control for Fragrance Resources in Grasse. Working in Grasse opened my senses; smelling perfumery ingredients, raw materials and fragrances produced at the factory was truly mesmerising. Then I was fortunate to meet Pierre Bourdon, who helped me write my life’s next chapter.

That must have been a life-changing experience…

Being mentored by Pierre Bourdon was the most rewarding, beautiful, and complex experience of my life. It was a true gift from God to be trained by a perfumer I admire so much for his talent, choices, erudition, intelligence and articulacy.

He is a creative visionary and is able to beautifully share what he has seen, heard, or felt through fragrances. He taught me a lot about creation and becoming a professional creative.

What do you remember most from your time with him?

Before Pierre Bourdon started training me, he encouraged me to smell flowers. When you come from Paris, you do not know the smell of mimosa, jasmine, centifolia rose, lavender and lavandin cultivars. Even aromatic herbs are a discovery when you smell them in the heat, in the Mediterranean garigue. It fuelled my imagination and my passion.

He also encouraged me to look at chromatographs [the technique of separating a mixture into its individual components] to learn and memorise how a blackcurrant base, a rose essence, or a jasmine absolute are composed. He told me to use that time to learn as much as possible.

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Extreme EDP

IMAGE: Viktor & Rolf.

Do you still ask him for advice?

I don’t really ask him for advice anymore. I believe a relationship with a mentor always has a beginning and an end.

Davidoff Cool Water Parfum is one of your recent creations from 2021. Pierre Bourdon created the 1988 original. Did you feel additional pressure taking on this project?

Not really. I was proud, though. As Pierre Bourdon’s former trainee, I immensely enjoyed working on this project. I wanted to ensure the continuity of the Cool Water story in an impressive way.

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Davidoff Cool Water Parfum

IMAGE: Davidoff.

How would you describe your style of perfumery?

It is always difficult for a perfumer to describe their personal style.

Fair enough. What do you hope to achieve with your creations?

Time hones your technique; you store tons of information, which helps you make shortcuts. We are only free once our knowledge is broad enough to play around with all the information we have in our minds.

But you have to keep that technique and knowledge on a leash, keep it at the right distance to preserve the freshness and the time spent daydreaming about the simple pleasures of childhood, which are so authentic and powerful, and resonate with so many people.

You must force yourself to continue seeing things with a child’s eyes, unencumbered by logic. That wonderment is what I give in my compositions. It’s the springboard to conveying emotions.

“That wonderment is what I give in my compositions. It’s the springboard to conveying emotions.” – Jean-Christophe Hérault

You’re getting recognition at last as the creator of Creed Aventus. What thoughts come to your mind when you see this super-successful scent?

I’ll never forget the Creed Aventus project. I worked directly with Olivier Creed and was given free rein. It was a true creative journey.

Have you read Gabe Oppenheim’s book? Your thoughts please.

I have received a copy, but still need to take the time to read it.

Do you have a favourite ingredient? Could you give an example of where and how you’ve used it?

I am very fond of smoky, leathery notes suggesting the smell of an open fire. There is a leathery note in Alien Man by Mugler expressed in smoky notes extracted from beech. In Aventus by Creed, I also used smoky notes.

“I like highly evocative ingredients, even when they are only present in trace amounts.” – Jean-Christophe Hérault

I like highly evocative ingredients, even when they are only present in trace amounts. Those fireplace and leather notes conjure up an entire world – a season, the countryside, the mountains, a new school bag, shoes and my mother’s fragrance, Shalimar by Guerlain.

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Mugler Alien Man EDT

IMAGE: Mugler.

What perfume project have you just completed and what can you tell us about it?

Kenzo Memori Poudre Matcha is a gentle and nostalgic fragrance, the embodiment of a happy memory, reminiscent of the Japanese tea ceremony. It is a beautiful cloud of matcha tea, velvet rose and white musk.

Jean-Christophe Hérault - Kenzo Memori Poudre Matcha EDP

IMAGE: Kenzo.

What gets you through a stressful time?

Taking a stroll outside has always helped me to relax. We are fortunate to have a beautiful park next to our offices, one of the largest company parks in Paris.

There’s no doubting your perfume skills. What are your other passions?

I have always loved literature. Pierre Bourdon asked me to read In Search of Lost Time by Proust before I started working with him; it was part of our “contract”. This masterpiece shows that there are aesthetic forms everywhere that can touch and inspire us. An encounter, a feeling, be it love or sadness. This book helped me accept myself as a creative.

IMAGE: The Folio Society.

I am fascinated by art history, which led me to take classes at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. The subject has immensely contributed to my inspiration for perfume creation.

I am also fond of anything to do with culinary arts. There are many bridges between perfumery and cuisine, and I believe there are many more to build; the possibilities are endless.

Creed Aventus EDP is available in South Africa at Skins Cosmetics.

December 18, 2022

Louise Turner Interview: “Competition Is Part Of A Perfumer’s Life”

IMAGE: Givaudan.

You might not have heard of Louise Turner if you’re not in the perfume industry. But you’ve most certainly seen / smelled one of her creations:

+ Jennifer Lopez JLo Glow EDT (2002)

+ Joop! Wolfgang Joop EDT (2008)

+ Chloé Love EDP (2010)

+ Roberto Cavalli EDP (2012)

+ Maison Martin Margiela Replica Lazy Sunday Morning EDT (2013)

+ Dior Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet EDT (2014)

+ Jimmy Choo Blossom EDP (2015)

+ Hugo Boss Boss The Scent Private Accord For Her EDP (2018)

+ Tom Ford Lost Cherry EDP (2018)

+ Ex Nihilo Lust in Paradise EDP (2019)

+ Carolina Herrera Bad Boy EDT (2019)

+ Jo Malone Hemlock & Bergamot Cologne (2019)

+ Mugler Angel Nova EDP (2020)

+ Les Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête EDP (2021)

+ Dries Van Noten Raving Rose EDP (2022)

IMAGE: Givaudan.

Oh, and then there’s the super-successful Carolina Herrera Good Girl franchise, with its numerous flankers and limited editions from 2016 onwards.

Medicine’s loss was perfumery’s gain when the Brit dropped out of medical school and found herself a job working in the market research company of a fragrance-producing company. Although Louise Turner didn’t follow the traditional perfumery school route, her nascent skills caught the attention of Quest’s Alain Garossi and she was on her way…

Her fine fragrance debuts from 2001 – Trussardi Python Uomo EDT and Versace Versus Time To Relax EDT – have disappeared into the mists of the discontinued and forgotten. But the massive success of JLo Glow ensured Louise Turner had no reason to regret her change in career path.

In this interview, we chat about her unconventional training, competing for briefs and dealing with stress. It’s clear her time in France has influenced her vocabulary, so I’ve kept the occasional French word intact.

IMAGE: Mugler.

Where did perfumery start for you? Any particular events / memories that sparked this passion?

I have always been sensitive to odour and notice and associate smells with places and people. But like a lot of people didn’t know about this job until I literally tripped over it – my destiny!

Where did you study? And what did you most enjoy / find challenging about that experience?

I was following a medical path, with a dentistry option, at a medical school in London. A big mistake as I didn’t want to be a dentist. So after I dropped out and went back home to Kent to rethink what I wanted to do with my life, I chose to study environmental science. With almost 10 months before I could restart my uni course, I found myself a student job in the market research department of Quest International (a fragrance company taken over by Givaudan in 2007).

Louise Turner - Maison Martin Margiela Replica Lazy Sunday Morning EDT

IMAGE: Maison Martin Margiela.

So there began my love affaire with perfume. I suppose I was in the right place at the right time as, after making a nuisance of myself and passing several smelling tests and interviews, Quest offered me a job as a trainee perfumer that I would start three years later after completing my studies.

Did you have a mentor?

I started in the UK in 1991 under a perfumer grassois [from Grasse] Alain Garossi who taught me the principles and helped to start my career – thank you, Alain! I then spent one year in the Netherlands before finally coming to Paris in 1996 (my dream) to start fine fragrance. I was supposed to stay two years and 26 years later, I’m still here.

Louise Turner - Dries Van Noten Raving Rose EDP

IMAGE: Dries Van Noten.

Certainly not the usual route…

It was a vastly different world then. I have a rather unconventional training, as most people I work with have either been to Isipca [the Versailles-based perfume school founded by Jean-Jacques Guerlain in 1970] or have been formed at the Givaudan Perfumery School. I don’t think I would make the cut to get into the latter school today, as it is so difficult with so many people wanting to make this their career. I was really lucky!

“I don’t think I would make the cut to get into the Givaudan Perfumery School today, as it is so difficult with so many people wanting to make this their career. ” – Louise Turner

Tell us about the fragrance that got your career going. What do you think about it now?

Glow by JLo was a real phenomenon and unexpected success. The licence was with Coty at that time and Jennifer Lopez was directly involved in its creation – she wanted the smell of clean and fresh skin, which was inspired by the smell of a particular soap she used.

How do you start each project?

Each project is different, so I adapt depending on the client and their approach and expectations.

However, I nearly always start with a quite simple idea that’s usually figurative – for example, peony with spicy chutney – and develop it from there.

The creation of perfumes involves competing for briefs from various companies. Please explain how that process works. Is it something you enjoy?

The process is always competitive and client driven, either via a specific project that will be briefed to us and other fragrance companies or via a themed library approach where, for example, we are asked to submit new feminine oriental ideas.

Louise Turner - Dior Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet EDT

IMAGE: Dior.

However, the competition is mostly felt internally as we perfumers are competing against each other and we rarely see the external competition.

Competition is part of a perfumer’s life – not the easiest thing to manage sometimes and keep the focus on your own game.

Let’s chat about the phenomenal success of Carolina Herrera Good Girl. What would people be surprised to know about this creation?

Good Girl is an amazing success – also very unexpected, as when we first launched it in 2016, it was destined for Spain, Latin America and Russia. But the interest kept on growing, which meant more and more launches worldwide. I travelled more for it than any other perfume.

There have been numerous Good Girl flankers since the launch of the original in 2016. How have you remained faithful to it while adding something different each time?

It is a simple idea of jasmine and tonka. It is very contrasted and powerful but success is always due to the mix: good perfume, bottle, name, advertising campaign and a good dose of luck.

Each flanker tells a different story while keeping the DNA of Good Girl. I worked on all these flankers with Quentin Bisch [colleague at Givaudan]. We work together a lot. He is the greatest.

Provocative name aside, Tom Ford Lost Cherry EDP must have been interesting to work on. What was it like to collaborate with Mr Ford on this 2018 release?

Working with Mr Ford is always a privilege. Such freedom of expression is a rarity today. Lost Cherry was a change for the brand in that it was the first fruity fragrance that he accepted – a new territory to conquer.

Louise Turner - Tom Ford Lost Cherry EDP

IMAGE: Tom Ford.

The unisex D by Diesel is one of your latest projects. More designer brands, at last, are going this route. Your thoughts please.

D expresses that tendance [tendency] for gender fluidity (which TF has been doing for a very long time). It’s good to allow people to choose what they really like rather than being pushed into gender-defined choices by obligation.

IMAGE: Diesel.

You’re equally at home creating perfumes for niche brands such as Ex Nihilo, Les Liquides Imaginaires and Maison Martin Margiela. How do these projects give you more creative freedom?

Yes, niche gives more freedom and is simpler to develop as it’s often direct ideas with only one person, so it’s much more straight to the point. They’re a breath of fresh air.

Louise Turner - Les Liquides Imaginaires Blanche Bête EDP

IMAGE: Les Liquides Imaginaires.

Behind the beautiful and glamorous façade, perfumery can be a high-pressure environment. How do you deal with the stress?

Perfumery can be stressful, particularly for someone like me who has a “stressed personality”, as everything is so fast and our clients are increasingly demanding.

“I try to deal with it by working from home part of the time (from my house in Normandy ) and working in my garden.” – Louise Turner

So I try to deal with it by working from home part of the time (from my house in the Normandy countryside) and working in my garden. Working with your hands is very good for destressing, especially when you’re in direct contact with nature.

December 7, 2022

Electimuss: Interview With Creative Director Claire Sokell Thompson

If you spend a fair amount of time on Instagram, you’ll have seen the stop-scrolling majestic bottles. But as this interview with Claire Sokell Thompson, Electimuss creative and communications director, will show you, there’s more to the London-based niche brand than eye candy.

The company was founded by Luke Granger and Jason Collison in 2015, with the myths, legends and history of ancient Rome as a rich source of inspiration (Electimuss means “to choose the best” in Latin).

While the brand has been around for seven years, it’s only recently that Electimuss has really started to take off. Its growing popularity is based on high-quality juices by perfumers who know how to give their creations luxurious oomph. See my reviews of Black Caviar, Mercurial Cashmere and Vici at the end of this interview.

Claire Sokell Thompson joined the team in 2020 and her influence can be seen in the house’s more cohesive creative direction. In this interview we chat about inspiration, perfumer briefings and 2023 projects.

Let’s get the obvious question out of the way first. Those gorgeous bottles, Who designed them?

Thank you so much! We get a lot of positive feedback on them. They are a masterpiece of many hands and, in fact, we’re working on a new evolution at the moment.

The brand launched in 2015 and has really made an impression over the last few years. It’s not as easy as it looks, though, so tell us about a specific problem Electimuss had to overcome.

In terms of our brand, we’re so lucky we’ve had so much support and passion from our customer base and retailers. The most difficult issues for us, like many of our compatriot brands, have been Covid and Brexit related in terms of supply, logistics and distribution.

Did you know Jason Collison and Luke Granger before you joined the team in 2020?

No, I didn’t. I met them before lockdown early 2020. They were aware of my work creating and launching Thameen and brought me onto the team to steer the brand into a new phase of growth.

“They were aware of my work creating and launching Thameen and brought me onto the team to steer the brand into a new phase of growth.”

Who does what in the scheme of things? And what are your backgrounds?

We are a close hands-on team. Luke and Jason were previously Boadicea The Victorious, so our collective experience is niche luxury fragrance.

Luke is the founder and runs logistics, warehouse and supply side of the business and we work together on product innovation. Jason’s business development and sales, and my areas are creative direction, perfume and new product development, communications and digital.

Electimuss Box & Ribbon

Ancient Rome is rich with inspiration. Have you become a bit of a history/mythology buff in the process?

Totally! I must confess that mythology was already one of my passions. I love exploring Greek, Nordic, Roman and Chinese mythology and seeing similar narratives and moralities pop up across different cultures throughout the centuries.

There is so much material to enjoy. Stephen Fry’s Mythos is an epic and very accessible introduction to the entirety of Greek mythology, on which most of Roman mythology was based. But there are interesting contemporary takes on the classics, like the incredibly talented Madeline Miller and Kamila Shamsie, plus great podcasts like Myths and Legends.

IMAGE: Penguin Books.

However, it isn’t just mythology, it’s also Roman history that’s so fascinating. We draw inspiration from both.

One of the things that separates Electimuss from an increasingly crowded niche sector is that all the scents are pure parfum concentration…

Yes, we’re unbending on that. Our name is a Latin portmanteau meaning “to choose the best” and that tenet runs through everything we do: the perfumers we work with, the ingredients and the concentrations.

We’re aware that luxury fragrance comes at a price, but our mission is to deliver the highest quality performance for the price. The budget on our perfumes far exceeds other brands in the same price band and with very high inclusion. So although our perfumes are not cheap, one spray goes a long way.

How did the collaborations with master perfumer Christian Provenzano (Pomona Vitalis, Persephone’s Patchouli, Capua) come about?

We’ve worked with Christian on eight of our perfumes now.

My idea for the Consort Collection was a collaborative creative approach. I wanted to work with one central note and explore it through two different lenses on a shared story.

So the story of Pluto, king of the underworld, and Persephone, daughter of the goddess of nature, was explored with patchouli representing the confluence of the underworld and earth’s surface. We worked with Christian Provenzano (pictured, below) and Kèvin Mathys for this new pair of perfumes.

IMAGE: Christian Provenzano Parfums.

Black Caviar from the Nero Collection is one of my personal favourites and very much captures what the brand is about…

It is one of our first perfumes and one of our bestsellers. It typifies what Electimuss is good at: creating original perfumes with gravitas. Our ambition is to create modern masterpieces that will become iconic classics of the future.

Talk us through a typical briefing of one of your selected perfumers.

It usually starts with a muse. For example, currently my muse is Venus for the next fragrance, so I explore all different aspects of Venus, from her different depictions through mythology to the way she has been represented in literature, art, music and more.

CREATIVE EXPRESSION: Sofia Bardelli created Mercurial Cashmere for Electimuss. IMAGE: Accademia del Profumo.

From there I either develop a conceptual brief around a specific ingredient (like the two patchouli perfumes launched earlier this year) or a map of scent references I’m interested in exploring, inspired by our muse.

The brief can include paintings, music, colours, stories and ingredient references. But we never want to be prescriptive – the key is creating a concept and an anchor for creative exploration.

“We never want to be prescriptive – the key is creating a concept and an anchor for creative exploration.”

Each perfumer we work with explores the brief in different ways: some like to talk, others to be more straight to creation to express their response. We then assess and evolve the fragrances together.

From the website, I see you’re about to launch a new collection. Tell us more about that please.

Our new launch is Travel Atomisers. We are working some of our best-selling perfumes into travel size with a stunning purple and gold atomiser.

IMAGE: Electimuss.

And we are due to launch Hair Mist early ’23. With the launch of three new beautiful perfumes next year, we have been busy creating. We’re so excited about these scents.

With the brand’s luxury credentials, there’s increasing pressure to be eco-friendly too. What progress is Electimuss making on that front?

Good question and on our minds constantly. It’s tough to make real change in this business. Sustainability runs from back to front end and we are making progress. Some solutions we look at seem sustainable, such as refillables, but when you pull them apart, they actually aren’t any more sustainable. And we aren’t interested in sustainable messaging, our focus is affecting real change.

Our ingredients are sustainable and vegan. We offset on delivery and logistics. On the packaging side, we are currently working on innovating the interiors of our boxes, but with luxury products keeping the product safe and pristine is paramount to customer satisfaction, so it takes innovation to find the solution.

3 ELECTIMUSS FRAGRANCES TO TRY NOW

All these perfumes from the Nero Collection capture what Electimuss is about in different and delightful ways.

ELECTIMUSS BLACK CAVIAR PARFUM (MARCO GENOVESE)

To call this 2019 release “intriguing” would be a massive understatement.

Taking its inspiration from the decadence of emperors Severus and Nero, it opens with the saltiness of caviar. The savoury gourmand note is made even more appealing with a chic coolness, as if on ice. A note of animalic oud adds to the richness. There’s aromatics aplenty from notes of rosemary, sage and lavender, with the latter standing out with its fresh and spicy, almost aniseed-y facets. The woodiness of vetiver, patchouli and oakmoss is maximised in the drydown.

From start to finish, it’s delicious stuff.

ELECTIMUSS MERCURIAL CASHMERE PARFUM (SOFIA BARDELLI)

An apt name for a fragrance that changes from the light and bright to the sensual and deep.

This 2021 release starts out in fresh and spicy mode with notes of Madagascan pink pepper, cardamom and Italian bergamot. The powder of iris and violet is paired with the white floral intensity of tuberose and the slight saltiness of a note of ambergris. And what about the cashmere? In perfumery, this refers to the synthetic Cashmeran (also known as blonde woods). It’s at its musky-woody best here. There’s more sweetness (just enough) from notes of caramel, vanilla and tonka bean. I don’t pick up much of the listed oud note, but that’s just me being fussy.

Named for the Roman god Mercury, it might imply a rapid change in mood from charming to nasty, but no worries, this beauty is definitely about the former.

ELECTIMUSS VICI LEATHER PARFUM (JULIEN RASQUINET)

Julien Rasquinet is admired for his work for niche brands such as Amouage, Zoologist and Masque Milano. His first fragrance for Electimuss, a 2022 release, takes its cue from the Latin phrase “veni, vidi, vici” (“I came, I saw, I conquered”).

An elegantly cosy scene is set with the spicy and powdery warmth of cinnamon. There are subtle touches of wormwood and pink pepper in the background. A leather accord-tuberose combo gives the composition a subtly sweet animalic quality without the white floral dominating things, while the musky amber accord in the drydown maintains the comfy ambience.

*Electimuss samples, Mercurial Cashmere and Black Caviar kindly gifted to me by the brand.

November 28, 2022

The Ghost Perfumer (The Perfume Book You Should Read This Year): An Interview With Author Gabe Oppenheim

Every now and then, a book comes along that changes your perspective of an industry and some of the players within it. The Ghost Perfumer: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century by Gabe Oppenheim (Solicitude) is that kind of read.

In a punchy and page-turning style with well-researched detail, Gabe Oppenheim gives credence to the rumours that have been swirling for years on online forums regarding Creed’s claims that the niche fragrance house has been producing fragrances since 1760 and for an impressive array of celebrities and dignitaries along the way, including King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Cary Grant.

But more importantly, the writer reveals how Olivier Creed, heir to the Creed clothing business, passed off many high-profile Creed releases as his own creations by taking advantage of the insecurities of a trio of perfumers.

Most of The Ghost Perfumer tells the story of Pierre Bourdon, creator of classics such as Yves Saint Laurent Kouros EDT, Davidoff Cool Water EDT, Montblanc Individuel EDT and Frédéric Malle French Lover EDP. And now acknowledged as the master behind several Creeds, including Fleurs de Bulgarie EDP, Green Irish Tweed EDP, Erolfa EDP, Millésime Impérial EDP, Silver Mountain Water EDP, Spring Flower EDP and Original Santal EDP.

And what of Creed Aventus, “the scent of the century”? Jean-Christophe Hérault gets long-last recognition for being the true talent behind this decade-defining and much-copied perfume. Julien Rasquinet also gets credit for creating Creed Royal Oud EDP and Creed Fleurs de Gardenia EDP, among others. Both these perfumers were students of Pierre Bourdon, which just adds to the intricacies and intrigues of the intertwined narratives explored by Gabe Oppenheim.

In what could have been a mere hatchet-job on a nasty character, Gabe Oppenheim places the behaviour of Olivier Creed and Pierre Bourdon in the context of an industry that’s built on fantasy, obfuscation and sometimes questionable business practises (for example, the rampant cloning of successful scents).

In this interview he chats about how The Ghost Perfumer come about, the workings of the industry and meeting Pierre Bourdon.

You’re known as a contributor to various magazines and author of books. How was this Creed project different to your other writing projects?

In many ways, it felt very similar – when I covered boxing, there was always a narrative that promoters were trying to push about their fighters, about upcoming match-ups. This was often hype that had very little relation to the reality of the boxer’s preparation or the event itself.

And so it struck me as kind of familiar when I saw that in the scent industry, the stories told about the supposed perfumers and their inspirations were generally cant and utterly apart from the truth of how fragrance is created.

“The Ghost Perfumer was different from some of my sports coverage because there’s a degree of truth in sports that the arts just cannot provide.”

That said, The Ghost Perfumer different from some of my sports coverage because there’s a degree of truth in sports that the arts just cannot provide. A baseball score, barring any cheating, is an objective measure of who was better on the day. A knockout is unimpeachably the triumph of one combatant over another.

And yet in fragrance, even compositions that win briefs can’t necessarily be said to be better formulas than those that lost. A scent wins in the eyes of an evaluator or creative director. Or even in a panel test. But all those judgments are subjective, and runner-up scents can end up on the market under another name and prove themselves superior to those frags they lost to in an initial brief.

Was there a particular event that sparked this project?

A lot of events. I was tired of covering combat sport, generally, and I was curious about the creators of scents. I had actually interviewed the duo behind the Imaginary Authors brand while I was still working on the fights. I wore their A City on Fire scent to Jay-Z’s office building once, back when his company was really trying to build up a boxing promotion.

IMAGE: Imaginary Authors.

But perhaps the final trigger was this zest I had for packing a new fragrance every time I travelled around the world to cover a fight. I was wearing these fascinating scents on press row in arenas the world over. And by 2019, I realised I was being somewhat myopic – why not figure out who had concocted these potions and why and what they were like beyond their laboratory orgues?

I knew there was good nonfiction to be found there, even if I didn’t yet have a clue as to what focus a book might take.

What were your thoughts on Creed fragrances before you started the book? Were you aware of the rumours about the dates of the releases and their supposed celebrity wearers?

I’d always found the celebrity claims a little preposterous. And I’d always liked the scents very much – I wore Green Irish Tweed, Bois du Portugal, Royal Oud and Aventus regularly. Over time I took a liking to Viking. I’d tried Tabarome and found it lacking as a tobacco scent.

I think the only info I had about the reality of their creation was what Michael Edwards and Luca Turin had discovered prior to my breaking into the field – that somehow Pierre Bourdon had had a hand in making Green Irish Tweed. But that was all I knew.

And so I just kept trying to reach out to Bourdon, despite his self-imposed exile from Parisian perfumer society and resultant residence up in Normandy. It’s why Pierre should get so much credit for my own reportage – if he hadn’t decided one day, many months into the project, to open up to me, I may not have dug too deeply into just how Creed had ostensibly generated those aforementioned scents I so enjoyed wearing.

What were you most surprised to discover in your research?

That Pierre Bourdon’s compensation for creating Creed’s scents consisted almost entirely (if not entirely-entirely) of bespoke suits from Olivier.

“Pierre Bourdon’s compensation for creating Creed’s scents consisted almost entirely (if not entirely-entirely) of bespoke suits from Olivier.”

What has the official Creed response been to the book since publication?

The new management team that BlackRock [the private equity fund which bought a majority stake in Creed in 2020] installed, a c-suite based in London, was so kind to me when I reached out to them pre-publication, particularly the head of marketing, Giles Gordon. We had a brief email correspondence during which Giles first offered to help me with my research and later retracted the offer, but my impression was that the company wanted to be authentic to its actual roots and not just fantasy.

And whether I forced Giles’ hand or not, that assessment has been born out – Creed has published two large magazine volumes since The Ghost Perfumer’s release that update the Creed family’s tale, align it with my own – the first said Olivier began trying to make the haberdashery into a perfumery beginning with fits and starts in the 1960s and the second revised the dates to the 1970s.

Which is truthful: the Creeds were not in the business of fragrance creation before then – and until Pierre became ghost-writer in the early 1980s, Creed’s small-batch scents were insignificant efforts, secondary to tailoring, and retailed primarily in small nooks, like the perfume shop Soleil d’Or in Lille, France.

“Until Pierre became ghost-writer in the early 1980s, Creed’s small-batch scents were insignificant efforts, secondary to tailoring.”

When I finished the book, I envisioned public smashings of Creed fragrances. But that’s just me being childish. What was your intention with it?

Oh, gosh, I had no such vision. I still own Creed scents. I had no intent except to tell a remarkable story – of a man who owned a company and desperately wanted to be a perfumer and of the diffident genius he used to unfairly snatch that mantle.

I wanted people to be fascinated by the interaction of Olivier and Pierre’s careers. A boycott of the company resembling Disco Demolition night was never a consideration for me.

Olivier Creed comes across as, let’s be frank, quite predatorial and a nasty piece of work. Did you approach him for comment? And did you ever have any doubts about your characterisation of him?

I approached Creed’s North American arm early in 2020 and they wouldn’t let me speak to Olivier; tentatively, they scheduled me to talk to Erwin [his son] instead. I figured if I did pose real questions to Erwin, however, I might prove my seriousness as a journalist and earn some time with Olivier.

However, someone rather rude in the Creed North America office cancelled my Erwin email-chat last minute, and after that, no matter who I asked at Creed about talking to Olivier or getting clarification on his actual status as a “perfumer” I got no response at all.

“No matter who I asked at Creed about talking to Olivier or getting clarification on his actual status as a ‘perfumer’ I got no response at all.”

Partly, I don’t think the company, prior to its takeover by BlackRock, believed I had the cojones or skill to depict the company’s actual workings. And after the takeover, I think those newly in charge felt the revelations were inevitable but didn’t want to hasten their release.

The book isn’t only an exposé of Creed, it also reveals the workings of the industry and its incestuous nature. How did you get people to talk to you about what really goes on behind the scenes?

I wrote long and impassioned emails about the need for perfume folks and general readers to get a better sense of who actually formulated the scents they so loved (and sometimes deplored).

It took a long time to convince perfumers – International Fragrance & Flavours didn’t okay my interviews with their folks for many, many months, before Judith Gross [Vice-President Communication & Branding, Scent], whom I love, ultimately realized I was quite serious about creative nonfiction and not just a shill or a parasite.

ALL OKAY: It took many months to get Judith Gross to approve interviews with IFF’s perfumers for research for The Ghost Perfumer. IMAGE: IFF.

And once I had access, I just pressed the perfumers to tell me what they were like, how they had gotten into the business, what they did in their free time. I wanted them to know I saw them as full humans, as artisans of the highest order whose stories could hold as much fascination as painters’ or musicians’ or boxers’.

Still, there are perfumers whose entourages still never let me get close enough to prove any of that – [Jacques] Cavallier, [Alberto] Morillas, [Michel] Almairac. Those are perhaps the top three who didn’t care for such an examination by this American interloper (or maybe Almairac’s son Benjamin never even put the request to his Pops – dunno quite why that never came together).

The part where you meet Pierre Bourdon at his home is particularly touching. Although he was certainly exploited by Oliver Creed, you’re careful not to paint him as a hapless victim…

Bourdon doesn’t view himself as a victim, really. The man got to practice an art whose ideas and concepts he treasures. Maybe he always detested some of the business practices. But the man took his love of Proust and applied the author’s passion for creation – for showing the work of creation in the creation itself – to perfumery. What could have satisfied such a scholarly and thoughtful reader more?

The Ghost Perfumer - Meeting Pierre Bourdon

NORMANDY RENDEZVOUS: Pierre Bourdon in the second Cabinet of Curiosities Room in his home. IMAGE: THE GHOST PERFUMER.

How did you earn Pierre Bourdon’s trust to get him to reveal so much to you?

Through many emails sent to the address he shared with his wife, Kathy, who always seemed to think me a decent sort – but really, through the imploring of Jean-Claude Ellena, who convinced Pierre first that I was serious about my own craft, writing, and could perhaps do justice to Pierre’s.

Let’s talk about Jean-Christophe Hérault and his role in the creation of the mega-hit Creed Aventus. He was very forthcoming at first and then the shutters came down. Why the change in behaviour?

Probably a sense that he had revealed enough to hurt his career and didn’t want to exacerbate things further – I say, probably, because Hérault might dismiss that without offering a better answer.

Gabe Oppenheim - Jean-Christophe Hérault

Regardless, he seems glad now that The Ghost Perfumer was written, that he’s being credited finally with the massive success he engineered. We text each other every now and again, and we’re certainly on friendly terms, for which I’m grateful. He has a signed copy of the book, and I own a good deal of his fragrant output. He has been nothing but kind to me of late.

I don’t blame him for not quite getting at first that my intentions, in terms of attributing work to its rightful creators, were more pure than not, and that I had the gumption to follow this process through to the end.

You also delve into the Julien Rasquinet creations that were passed off as Olivier Creed’s. Did he actually create any of the other Creed releases that are attributed to him on sites such as Fragrantica?

Olivier was a great creative director – he knew what sort of scent would beguile men (or, at least, he picked up in the 1960s and 1970s these notions). So Olivier can be credited with choosing the best scents, mostly, of those perfumers who did the actual technical work.

Olivier, however, not doing that technical work, cannot fairly be called a perfumer-creator, the definition of which perfumers such as [Christophe] Laudamiel and Calice Becker make rather clear not infrequently. I admire their devotion to getting the bylines in this messy industry cleaned up.

**The subtitle of the book is Part 1: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century. What’s the next one about?**

The next one could involve a certain Berlin-based perfumer who’s a masterful raconteur and a well-known figure to the fragcomm. But it could also be about the pirates of the Dubai clone market or the bizarre way in which Caron has survived several strange owners (it’s now a property of a Rothschild).

Or perhaps it will be about none of these things. I’ve made a good many false starts in the last few months. But they aren’t all for naught – at least one will hopefully become a full-length book.

IMAGE: Caron.

And I would tell perfume-prose fans, if you like my nonfiction, I think you’ll like my inventions, too – and in fact, I’ve been working also on a novel and perhaps that will come out in between perfume-focused books, first. I’ve written about 4 000 compelling words so far for that project. Maybe I’ll never see it to the end, but for now, I’m just thinking, 96 000 equally satisfying words to go…

The Ghost Perfumer: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century is available worldwide on Amazon.

Gabe Oppenheim - The Ghost Perfumer Cover

What fragrance are you wearing today?

I could see why you would choose Ormonde Woman to give you that feeling. And that’s also the power of a beautifully created fragrance.

You started your company in 2000 and here you are 20 years+ later. What’s kept you going through all this time?

I can’t think of a better way to start with such a special fragrance. Let’s talk about working with Geza Schoen, the perfumer who’s created a lot of your releases. Why has that been such a successful collaboration so far?

There’s lots of inspiration happening and you take it quite freely from London, your travels. Do you ever struggle with that?

LINDA PILKINGTON ON…

ORMONDE JAYNE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH COLLECTION

ORMONDE JAYNE LA ROUTE DE LA SOIE COLLECTION

ORMONDE JAYNE ELIXIR COLLECTION

ORMONDE JAYNE ISFARKAND EDP AND ELIXIR

ORMONDE JAYNE TA’IF EDP

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Your relationship with Ariane de Rothschild is an integral part of Caron. What can you tell us about her?

She’s obviously very passionate about Caron. Something you both have in common…

There’s a magnificent heritage to Caron, which started with Ernest Daltroff in 1904. One of your challenges must be to make Caron relevant to a contemporary market. Some might think Caron is old school, old fashioned. How do you get that balance? It can’t be easy?

I haven’t tried it yet but have tried Tabac Exquis and Rose Ebène de Caron, which have a gourmand aspect…

I love the way you haven’t done obvious gourmands. Are you a gourmand man yourself?

I wanted to ask you about the one I’m wearing now, Caron Pois de Senteur Parfum, originally created by Ernest Daltroff in 1927, and inspired by the floral sweat pea. How did you approach this recreation?

With IFRA regulations, you must be so careful with ingredients like oakmoss…

The last few years have been intense for you. Do you get time to yourself? Or is perfumery all-consuming?

Music is one of your great loves. Have you ever regretted not following that career path?

One last question, the new collection, Les Colognes Sublimes, which has just been launched…

Are they eau de colognes? I haven’t tried them but from what I’ve read, they’re stronger than conventional colognes.

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What fragrance are you wearing today?

Where did perfumery start for you?

Your father, Max Gavarry, created classics such as Antonio Puig Quorum EDT (1981), Dior Dioressence EDT (1979) and Estée Lauder Beautiful EDP (1985). Was he a big influence on your decision to become a perfumer and did that come with its own pressures?

You studied at ISIPCA. Was it a formative time for you?

What was your fine fragrance debut? What do you think of it now?

Although your creations are obviously guided by briefs, what do you always try to give them?

I love Dolce & Gabbana Intenso EDP (2014). What can you tell us about the creation of this scent?

When did you move to NYC? Does working and living in such a dynamic environment bring something different to your creations?

You work for dsm-firmenich, the Swiss fragrance and flavoUr company. Which of their ingredients / captive molecules do you particularly enjoy using?

You’ve worked on several celebrity fragrances over the years. For example, Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely EDP (2005), Ariana Grande Cloud EDP (2018), Cher Eau de Couture EDP (2019) and Paris Hilton Love Rush EDP (2022). Is this a genre you enjoy working on? What makes it different to other projects?

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PERFUMERS

INSPIRATION

SO WHAT DOES KAYALI YUM PISTACHIO GELATO 33 EDP INTENSE SMELL LIKE?

INTERVIEW WITH OLIVIER CRESP & SÉBASTIEN CRESP, THE CREATORS OF KAYALI YUM PISTACHIO GELATO 33 EDP INTENSE

Is this the first time you’ve worked together on a fragrance?

How would you describe the Kayali Yum Pistachio Gelato 33 EDP Intense creation experience?

Did you have different ideas on how to execute this scent?

How did you get this fragrance to be so creamy? Any particular ingredients?

With your pioneering gourmand background, I must ask if you enjoy eating gourmand treats as much as you enjoy smelling and creating them?

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What fragrances do you wear?

Where did perfumery start for you?

When you studied at ISIPCA, were you aware of the existence of captive molecules?

What was your fine fragrance debut?

Without going into too much technical detail, how would you define captive molecules? And what are some of the most well-known examples?

Are they becoming more important in the creation process?

Are captive molecules synthetic or natural ingredients?

Are you incentivised to use Firmenich captive molecules in your creations?

You’ve created several fragrances for Le Labo. For example: Iris 39, Santal 33, Ylang 49 and Thé Noir 29. And Ariana Grande Ari is one of your many other successes. Did you use any Firmenich captive molecules in their creation?

I’m seeing the International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF) captive molecule Cashmeran everywhere. Does Firmenich have an equivalent captive molecule?

Could you tell me how you used a specific Firmenich captive molecule in one of your most recent creations? What did it bring to the composition?

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What fragrance are you wearing today? Why did you choose it?

You retired in 2018. You mentioned in our initial chat on IG that the industry was changing. Please elaborate on how this influenced your decision to retire.

From your Instagram page, it looks like you are well on your way to becoming a Master Gardener. Was gardening always a passion of yours, or did this develop in recent years?

Is gardening similar to perfumery in any ways?

From your IG page, I see you’ve also spoken out about Donald Trump. What are your thoughts on the current state of American politics?

Did you always know you wanted to become a perfumer? Or was there another career option for you?

After your studies at ISIPCA, what did you have to learn for yourself through experience?

What was your fine fragrance debut and what do you think of it now?

Calvin Klein cK One (which you co-created with Alberto Morillas) was one of your earlier successes. Why do you think it was and still is such a hit?

Tom Ford Grey Vetiver must be one of my favourite creations of yours. What can you tell us about its creation? And what was it like working with Mr Ford on this project?

Ermenegildo Zegna Indonesian Oud (2012) is superb stuff. You co-created this with Pierre Negrin, Frank Voelkl and Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud. How did you contribute to it?

What did you try to achieve with all your creations?

Of your many creations, is there one that has special significance for you?

You won several awards during your career. Where do you keep your them?

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You grew up between Paris and Oise (north of Paris) and your father produced concentrates for the perfume industry. Did you know from an early age that you wanted to become a perfumer?

That must have been a life-changing experience…

**The subtitle of the book is Part 1: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century. What’s the next one about?**